The house was silent when they returned. A domestic kind of silence—one that felt almost offensive after everything they had just learned.

  Momoru was the first to look up when the door opened. He was sitting down, wearing that attentive expression that always suggested he had been expecting bad news for a while. Seliane stood nearby, leaning against the living room doorway.

  Lyciah stopped short when she saw her.

  “What are you doing out of bed?”

  Seliane blinked, surprised—then smiled, as if the question amused her.

  “Disobeying medical orders,” she replied proudly.

  Lyciah frowned and stepped closer, assessing her without thinking. Better color. Steady pulse. Even breathing.

  “Seliane—”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she cut in. “Your power worked.”

  Momoru cleared his throat softly, crossing his arms.

  “She slept through the entire night,” he added. “And most of the morning.”

  “It was time to get up,” Seliane said. “It’s starting to feel humiliating to stay in bed for that many hours in a row.”

  Lyciah finally exhaled, though the tension didn’t completely leave her shoulders.

  “You should still be resting.”

  “That’s what I was doing,” Seliane replied calmly. “But I’ve slept enough, while you all went and faced the spoiled child of time again. Who, by the way, I still haven’t actually seen in person.”

  Caelan and Elric exchanged a silent look. Momoru gestured toward the living room, tired but firm.

  “We should sit down.”

  No one argued.

  Elric was the first to drop into the large armchair. Seliane followed, settling beside him.

  Lyciah sat next to Momoru on the opposite sofa. His calm, solid presence made her feel steadier.

  Caelan took a separate chair. Alone. Back straight, hands resting on his knees.

  For a few seconds, no one spoke. Elric was the one to break the silence—his voice soft, without accusation, but firm with the need to understand.

  “I want answers,” he said, his gaze sliding toward Caelan. “I've been at your side for centuries, and you never once told me about a Creator. So what is this? Who was Eresha?”

  Seliane and Momoru looked at each other, confused. Momoru shook his head. Neither of them had heard the name before.

  Lyciah spoke slowly, without taking her eyes off Caelan.

  “I’ve read about the Ancestrals my entire life. Chronicles, treatises, censored versions, and others that were clearly invented. None of them mention their origin. None of them speak of a Creator.”

  Caelan clasped his hands together and lifted his gaze.

  “I’ll try to explain calmly,” he said. “And in order.”

  He allowed himself a brief pause, as if placing each word with care.

  “Eresha was born over five thousand years ago, in what you would now call Mesopotamia. Back then, there were no countries or borders as you know them. There were villages, young cities… and people learning how to survive in a hostile world.”

  Lyciah leaned forward without realizing it.

  “She was a priestess,” Caelan continued. “She could read and write. That alone made her remarkable. But beyond that… she had a gift. She could sense magic. Understand it. Shape it.”

  Elric tilted his head.

  “Like Lyciah?”

  Caelan nodded, then went on in the same steady voice.

  “She used her power to protect her people. She blessed crops. Reinforced walls. Drove away disease. For years, her village prospered because of her.”

  Seliane smiled softly.

  “She sounds like a good person.”

  “She was,” Caelan confirmed without hesitation. “Which is why she did what she did next… when she found an ancient, forgotten temple in the desert. With a mirror inside.”

  Lyciah tensed immediately.

  “A mirror…”

  “Yes,” Caelan nodded. “And within it… something alive.”

  Momoru lowered his gaze, thoughtful.

  “The Omen…” he murmured.

  Caelan nodded.

  “You know it. Even now. Eresha felt it the moment she touched the mirror. An active presence. Conscious.”

  He paused briefly.

  “Preparing.”

  Elric swallowed.

  “Preparing for what?”

  “To cross over.”

  Seliane, her expression troubled, leaned into Elric’s shoulder. He didn’t pull away.

  “Eresha watched it for years,” Caelan continued. “Every day it grew stronger. More impatient. And she realized something: when it emerged, she wouldn’t be able to stop it alone.”

  He fell silent for a few seconds before continuing, sitting a little straighter.

  “So she created help.”

  Lyciah’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  “You?”

  Caelan nodded.

  “She used another mirror. One of her own.”

  Lyciah held her breath. None of this appeared in the books.

  “She divided it into seven fragments and poured all her magic into them,” he went on. “She sent them to different places—poor villages, Uruk, Kish, cities on the brink of collapse… And each fragment found a human… who was dying.”

  Elric’s eyes widened slightly. Seliane frowned.

  “So then…”

  “They died,” Caelan said calmly. “And in dying, they awakened.”

  The living room fell silent.

  “That is why we are undead,” he added. “All of us crossed death in order to exist.”

  Lyciah felt a knot tighten in her chest.

  “However…” Caelan’s expression darkened. “Eresha had to pay a price for such a spell. She lost what made her human. Her emotions.”

  The atmosphere shifted. Everyone knew magic of that magnitude demanded a cost, but they exchanged uncertain glances, unsure what to say.

  “But her purpose did not waver,” Caelan added at last. “She sealed the Omen, and continued to do so for millennia, every time it stirred from its slumber.”

  Lyciah clenched her fists against her knees.

  “Until Ekchron killed her…” she murmured, a thread of sadness in her voice.

  Elric suddenly narrowed his eyes, as if something didn’t quite add up.

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  “Wait,” he said, looking back at Caelan. “You said Eresha created Ekchron and then let him loose.”

  Everyone turned toward him. That clearly made him nervous; he stayed quiet for a few seconds, gathering himself.

  “But…” he continued, a faint blush creeping up his face, “weren’t you all created to help her seal the Omen?”

  For a moment, Caelan didn’t answer. It wasn’t a long pause—barely a second—but it was enough. His expression tightened, almost imperceptibly. His jaw set.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “But Ekchron… was never like the others.”

  Lyciah frowned.

  “Because of his control over time?”

  Caelan inclined his head slightly.

  “Each Ancestral was granted a specific power,” he explained. “Mine is defensive. I can raise barriers. Protect. Endure.”

  “That’s why people consider the Second the weakest,” Seliane joked with a childish smile. “You don’t have a power as… spectacular as the others.”

  Lyciah shot her a warning look. Caelan didn’t react. He continued, unperturbed.

  “Ekchron was given the power of fire,” he said. “He was never meant to receive anything beyond that.”

  The tension in the room thickened.

  “And yet,” Seliane cut in, resting her chin on her hand, her expression tired, “he also ended up with control over time.”

  She exhaled slowly.

  “That’s why everyone considers him untouchable.”

  Caelan nodded, though the gesture was slow, heavy.

  “It was never Eresha’s intention,” he continued. “When she realized what had happened, she called him… an error.”

  The word fell with a strange weight.

  “She said that everything born must be able to die,” he added. “That this is the price of existence. But Ekchron cannot die. Time always protects him.”

  He lifted his gaze, serious.

  “That goes against the natural balance of the world.”

  Momoru sighed softly.

  “So his own creator considered him a mistake…”

  “Oh yes, the famous ‘natural balance,’” Seliane scoffed. “The same one that created the Pillars to restrain the Seven Ancestrals… and then let them sleep for five thousand years.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t give it too much authority when it comes to deciding what qualifies as a mistake.”

  Caelan listened in silence before continuing. There was something in his eyes now that hadn’t been there before—an old, uneasy shadow.

  “Eresha did not allow Ekchron to fight alongside us against the Omen,” he said. “She did not call him son. Nor ally.”

  A brief pause.

  “Only error.”

  Elric frowned.

  “So… she abandoned him?”

  “Yes. By then, Eresha had already lost her emotions. Her humanity. When she saw that one of her creations threatened the natural order, she did not hesitate.” He tensed slightly in his chair. It was not anger that stiffened him—but something quieter. Heavier. “Ekchron was excluded from the Seven from the very beginning.”

  Lyciah closed her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t forgive it. Ekchron was a murderer. A monster who took pleasure in killing humans he saw as objects.

  And yet… Something tightened in her chest. It wasn’t compassion. Not exactly. Perhaps just the uncomfortable realization that even monsters had been rejected first.

  No one dramatized the revelation. Which, in itself, said a lot.

  “Alright,” Seliane said suddenly, breaking the silence. “So the immortal butcher, scourge of civilizations and collective trauma of half the world turns out to be a factory defect rejected by his own creator. I don’t know about you, but I’m not processing that on an empty stomach.”

  Momoru was already heading for the kitchen without a word, rolling up his sleeves with the ease of someone who had decided that feeding everyone was, at this moment, the most efficient way to prevent a collective existential crisis.

  Elric remained seated beside Seliane, still thoughtful. She glanced at him.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’ve seen him. In person.”

  Elric nodded.

  “And physically,” she went on, making a vague gesture with her hand. “What’s he like? I mean the icon of historical panic. Something memorable. Horns. Three meters tall. A presence that screams ‘cosmic error’ the moment he walks into a room.”

  Elric considered this with absolute seriousness.

  “Ginger,” he said at last. “Very short.”

  Seliane blinked. Then blinked again.

  “So you’re telling me,” she said slowly, “that the greatest humanoid catastrophe of the last five thousand years could walk into a tavern wearing a hoodie and no one would look twice?”

  “Probably,” Elric nodded. “That’s the unsettling part.”

  Seliane leaned back against the sofa, thoughtful.

  “Incredible. I was expecting an imposing entity and it turns out he’s… statistically discreet.”

  They stayed there for a while, speaking in low voices, tossing around theories with near-academic seriousness: whether the Ancestrals had come with instruction manuals, whether Ekchron had ignored all warnings, or whether he had simply decided that free will included being an absolute disaster.

  Lyciah didn’t stay to listen.

  She went upstairs without thinking about when she’d made the decision. The air in the living room felt heavy, saturated with ideas she didn’t yet know how to place. She closed her bedroom door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, breathing deeply.

  Eresha. The Seven. The Omen.

  And Ekchron. The way he had looked at her. The nickname he kept using. Little bird.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, fingers intertwined, staring at a random spot on the floor.

  There was a knock at the door. Lyciah lifted her head sharply.

  “Come in,” she said after a second.

  The door opened softly.

  Caelan.

  For some reason, his presence unsettled her more than she had expected. She stood almost at once, suddenly aware of how close he was, of how he filled the space with that calm of his that never seemed accidental.

  “Everything alright?” she asked, too quickly.

  Caelan closed the door behind him with care.

  “I needed to speak with you,” he said.

  Lyciah nodded, stepping aside to let him in. She was immediately certain that whatever Caelan was about to tell her did not appear in any book.

  She sat in the armchair and gestured for him to do the same. Caelan shook his head slowly.

  “I thought it would be better to tell you alone,” he said. “Afterwards, you can decide whether you want to share it with the others.”

  She nodded. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her heart pounding for reasons she couldn’t fully justify. She wasn’t sure whether it was because of what Caelan was about to reveal… or simply because she was alone with him in such a small room. There was something about his presence that unsettled her—but not unpleasantly.

  “It’s about Eresha’s power,” he continued.

  “It’s…” Lyciah hesitated. “Similar to mine, isn’t it?”

  Caelan was silent for a moment.

  “I wouldn’t describe it as similar.”

  Then, with absolute calm and without changing his tone, he added:

  “Eresha was the first Dawnbringer.”

  Lyciah froze. The words took a second too long to settle.

  “But…” she stammered. “That can’t be. The power is inherited—”

  “From mother to daughter,” he interrupted gently. “Yes. But Eresha had no descendants. When she died a millennium ago, the power did not vanish. It sought someone capable of bearing it. Someone sensitive to magic. Compatible.”

  Lyciah stared at him without blinking.

  “Misaha,” he said.

  The name fell between them with a different weight. Lyciah didn’t respond.

  “That likely explains what happened with Ekchron,” Caelan added. “I suspect he cannot harm the Dawnbringers.”

  “That…” she murmured, still stunned. “That makes sense.”

  Silence settled between them, dense but not uncomfortable. Caelan was the one who spoke again.

  “For a long time, I believed Misaha was a lumen who had inherited the power,” he said. “That was Heliora’s position. But that healing ability belongs neither to the lumens nor to the Dawnbringers. Misaha… was something else.”

  He looked up at her.

  “And so are you.”

  Lyciah shrank slightly into the chair. She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Caelan added suddenly. “I will figure it out.”

  She looked up, surprised.

  “That’s why I will continue protecting you. I will remain at your side until I understand your nature. It’s the only way to understand Vaela.”

  Lyciah let out a nervous, almost inaudible laugh.

  “You’ll stay by my side,” she repeated softly, “to uncover my secret.”

  She stood slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, less steady.

  “I’d rather you stayed by my side because… well…”

  She stopped, pressing a hand to her chest as if trying to organize something that refused to cooperate.

  “Because it calms me to know you’re close,” she continued, stumbling over the words. “And because I trust you. And because you don’t look at me like I’m broken or defective, and that almost never happens to me, and—” She exhaled. “And because I don’t want it to be just a mission. That’s all.”

  Caelan didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice wasn’t the same.

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said, more sharply than he intended. “It’s not prudent.”

  Lyciah blinked, startled. He frowned, as if the situation had unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

  “Don’t confuse things,” he went on, looking away. “My duty has nothing to do with what you want it to mean.”

  There was something tense in his posture. Something defensive. Human. A crack in his usual composure.

  “Caelan—”

  “I don’t need personal reasons to stay,” he said, his voice faintly unsteady. “And you shouldn’t look for them.”

  He stopped.

  “I’m not very good…” he added quietly, “with that sort of thing.”

  For the first time, he didn’t seem ancient. He seemed like a man who didn’t know what to do with affection when it reached him unannounced.

  Lyciah lowered her gaze, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. Her heart was still beating too fast, and she didn’t dare trust her voice. Saying anything might shatter that fragile moment, so she stayed still, letting the silence do what she couldn’t: ask nothing of him.

  In sharp contrast to that silence, someone else couldn’t stay still.

  Sorian felt the constant pressure in his chest. The sensation of always being one step behind. He walked without direction, but with one certainty: he couldn’t afford to fail again.

  Lyciah had to come home. Whether she wanted to or not. Whether she hated him for it. It was the only way to keep her safe.

  He stopped abruptly. Not because he saw something—but because he felt something watching him.

  “You’re late,” a deep voice said behind him.

  There was no mockery in it. Only certainty.

  Sorian turned. He saw a tall man. White hair fell over his shoulders, an unsettlingly familiar shade. A white coat wrapped elegantly around his figure, partially concealing the dark, perfectly fitted clothes beneath. Red eyes watched him with calm interest, assessing.

  “And yet,” the stranger continued, “you’re still in time to fix it.”

  Sorian didn’t answer. The other man smiled slowly.

  “I can help you bring her back.”

  The silence that followed wasn’t rejection. It was calculation.