The air within White Phoenix Academy hung heavy with anticipation, dense with the scent of incense, old parchment, and the faintest trace of ozone—residue from countless spells woven in these halls. Light filtered through the stained-glass windows high above, painting shifting mosaics across the smooth marble floors. The spires of the Academy—tall, pale, and impossibly elegant—reached skyward like the bleached ribs of a slumbering giant, their shadows sprawling over Aerieon's hilltop like fingers clawing at the dawn.
Beyond the bustle of the city, past the classrooms where young minds bent toward the mysteries of the arcane and the diplomatic salons where futures of nations were decided in whispers, something quieter—and infinitely more profound—was unfolding.
At the heart of the Academy, in the deepest sanctum veiled behind a dozen wards and guarded by spells no outsider could name, Jirni Velastra was in labor.
She lay on a bed of silver-threaded linens, carved from living stone that hummed softly beneath her, thrumming with enchantments meant to soothe and stabilize. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Sweat slicked her brow and dampened her temple-length auburn hair, though the chamber was cool and still. She gritted her teeth against each contraction, her fingers clawing into the sheets, her body locked in a primal battle between pain and creation.
Yet this was no ordinary birth.
Beside her, Orion knelt. A tall man with quiet eyes the color of stormy seas, he gripped her hand tightly in both of his. His normally steady presence—so often a source of calm in turbulent times—quivered now beneath the strain of powerlessness. His shoulders were tense, and his jaw clenched in silence. He spoke no words, yet everything he was burned in his gaze.
You are not alone. I am here. We do this together.
His presence was her anchor.
Hovering nearby was a healer of the Third Veil, her robes of white and gold etched with glowing sigils that whispered in tongues older than nations. Her hands moved with ritual precision, summoning threads of aetheric light that laced themselves into Jirni's aura—guiding, strengthening, easing the tearing edge of agony. Her brow furrowed in concentration, but her voice, when she spoke, was as serene as falling snow.
"Almost there," she whispered. "Just one more breath."
A low rumble echoed through the sanctum—not a sound of danger, but a resonance, as though the very stones of the Academy sensed the significance of this moment. The wards around them shimmered briefly, reacting to the convergence of magic, blood, and fate.
Then, without warning, the silence shattered.
A cry rang out—sharp, sudden, and impossibly clear. It rose like a bell note struck at the heart of the world, carrying with it an ancient music that had not been heard in generations. It echoed through the halls, through the bones of the Academy, through the very air.
The cry of new life.
Orion exhaled, the breath leaving him in a shudder, as if he'd been holding it since the moment he entered the chamber. His head dipped, his forehead resting briefly on Jirni's trembling hand. Across from them, the healer lifted the newborn child, swaddled in gossamer cloth that shimmered with residual magic.
Jirni looked up, eyes brimming with unshed tears, her chest heaving. Not from pain now—but from awe. Her lips parted, and she reached out, fingers trembling, to brush the child's cheek.