[Aiden (Our Firebird!)]

  The scent of death and withered magic hung thick in the air as Aiden and Aelion materialized on the transportation gate’s platform. Taking the first step toward the path, Aiden’s gaze wandered across the corrupted area. “You’re sure this is the right stop?”

  A twisted wasteland of a ruined kingdom spread before them: crumbling buildings and walls, blackened trees and fountains, and twisted architecture welcomed them with the pungent scent of decay.

  “According to the research I did, yes,” the fae muttered. “The Grand Chancellor gave Queen Sela this entire district. At first, I thought it was a punishment, meant to make the staff accept her position.”

  “And now?”

  Aelion stuffed his hands into his pants pocket, descending with him.

  “Now? Well, I think that’s obvious… There’s a larger game at play here. This facade is meant to hide something the faculty doesn’t want investigated.”

  Ancient trees stood as blackened, skeletal sentries, their branches reaching toward the ashen sky. It was then that Aiden noticed that even the solar fruits high above were tainted by the corruption they shaded, hanging like the desperate fingers of the dying.

  Aelion glanced his way as they proceeded onto the cobblestones, cracked and stained with substances that might once have been water, but now gleamed with an oily, unnatural sheen. He led the way, seemingly knowing where Jin wanted them to go.

  “You don’t seem to be that put off by it.”

  Aiden’s rainbow flames licked against his knuckles as he cast his gaze, allowing the scene to sink into his gut; there was a pulse within him that said this was the correct location.

  “Maybe I’ve grown used to how Sela felt as an Unseelie over the three years I’ve known her, but it’s…pretty similar. The Darkness feels shockingly similar. You do know where those doors are?”

  The fae gave him a slight grimace before producing a small vial, stuffed with Sora’s shed fur. “Not exactly. That’s another reason I’ve been, ahem, doing this…”

  He extracted a small amount, tattoos illuminating as trace amounts of fae Founder magic mixed with Sora’s fur. A tiny flame ignited, copper and bright, floating forward as their guide.

  “Sora’s magic still infuses her hair and holds that Desire Magic element… By using a little as a conduit, I’m able to create incredibly complex patterns without knowing the patterns themselves, which is required for fae magic.”

  “So it’s a cheat code,” Aiden muttered, nose twisting as he watched the flame weave through the air, taking them to their destination. “You can’t just brush this off, you know… You’re collecting her hair, using her essence like some kind of magical battery.”

  Aelion’s hardening jade eyes remained fixed on the path ahead, his tattooed hands unconsciously moving to stroke one of the symbols. “I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s a bit more than that. I told you during our battle.”

  “Really?” His flames flared brighter, casting harsh shadows across the artificial prince’s angular features. “Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you’ve been treating Sora like a resource to be harvested for your ends. And you’re manipulating her feelings, being friendly to gain access.”

  They passed beneath an archway carved with runes, half gold, like honey, the other half melted by some ancient catastrophe. Aiden’s mouth creased at Aelion’s silence as they followed the copper flame, dancing through the corrupted air.

  The tension from their earlier confrontation hung like a blade, but Aiden didn’t press, feeling the emotional turmoil building within the fae. For several minutes, they walked in uncomfortable silence, following the copper flame deeper into the ruins.

  Finally, Aelion stopped, his shoulders sagging, looking not at him but the ground beneath their feet. “If you want the truth, then I can only tell you in a hazy illusion, cast by my lived experience. Nothing I say will make my actions acceptable. What do you want from me?”

  Aiden found his wrist behind his back, following his gaze to the rising mists—The Darkness was growing, expanding.

  That should have been alarming…but causality didn’t blink. They were right where they needed to be for the best outcome—at least, the best outcome for him.

  “You said you needed to understand how Sora was different so you can understand yourself. The method matters, but the purpose is the most critical thing Sora will want answers to. If you can’t tell me, then how can you explain it to her… Do you even want to?”

  An almost melancholy smile touched the artificial prince’s lips as he brought them back into motion, following the flickering ember. The flame danced in his eyes as he stared at it, voice low and contemplative.

  “Explanation is a high bar…especially when it is hard for me to explain it to myself… Hmm. When was the last time I felt like this? These thoughts take me to a place that is uncomfortable within my chest… A poetic tragedy I have yet to step into the shoes of.”

  Vision rising to a purple mist that was rising to obscure the Realm Tree, he mumbled, “Like I’m drifting in a dream… A dream that has been conquered by an outside force?

  “These are words that are not my own…

  “Caught in time, like clockwork, beneath the permafrost. My existence lost within an oblivion I’d forgotten, blurring the line between reality and fiction.”

  Aiden’s mouth became a line, having to reorient his mind and heart to connect to the shift in tone. “That is a change in pace… Born in a Shadow Pit, called son by the High King of the land, and filled with talent beyond anything you can explain. Is that…imposter syndrome?”

  “Interesting conclusion. Not the one I have concluded. My question is, am I simply the imposter? How could I know?” the fae mumbled, staring into the flames as it took them down another path. “I am in a slow dance between identity and purpose.”

  Aiden’s anger faltered slightly at the raw vulnerability bleeding through Aelion’s voice. “That’s a hard place to be in… I’m listening.”

  “Are you?” he challenged with a sad laugh, removing one hand from a pocket to run through his hair. “And by that, I mean, are you here or just a figment of my imagination? Some days I feel as if I am walking multiple lives I’ve already lived and conversations that bleed together like ink—a character written in someone else’s story.”

  “Hmm…” He watched the creases deepen in the fae’s face. “I could try to comfort you or say everything will be okay…but you did take Sora’s fur. You did it for a reason. Jin called you an artificial Founder. I won’t deny those facts… What that means can change, though.”

  “Once again, another’s words bubble out of my chest:

  “A clever twist to the cadence,” he mumbled, snapping his fingers and turning the small flame to a floating Sora, motioning for them to follow her. The cute image didn’t move the man’s lost gaze as he stared into the fire.

  “The answer that cuts my lips to say… So far away, I’m dead awoken, and I’m fading. Life falls to gray mist, yet I still hear her call to life… “Her magic is like breath, a burning breeze through paradise to me, mending a torn mind, and bringing clarity. I’m taken by the tide, forever bathed in her light…

  “How pathetic does that sound?”

  Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Aiden listened closely to the meaning written between the words. He found a strange connection to pieces of the poetic lyrics.

  “Jin called you a construct, an artificial Founder… I can’t say I’m a fan of you personally, but I can recognize that you’re dealing with something beyond simple fae mind games. If Sora anchors you—and not in a romantic way—then I can accept that for now. There is something deeper happening.”

  He trailed off, looking around at the thickening mists, flames licking up his arms to surround him in a rainbow hue. They’d come upon an open wall that revealed a hidden passageway into what must have been the castle structure of the old kingdom.

  “…So, I think I know now, but tell it to me straight. What do you feel toward Sora?”

  Aelion’s laugh held no humor, the sound echoing hollowly off the twisted remnants of what had once been a beautiful, honey-coated kingdom. His voice was even though, reflective, but strong.

  “She’s a flame in a dark dream that keeps me grounded… Not my dream, but a piece of a puzzle in someone else’s nightmare. In essence, I’m just trying to understand what made me different from real people. But, her power is the sole thing that feels like…proof that I exist. That I’m more than just magic pretending to be alive.”

  Sucking on his bottom lip, Aiden took the first step into the ruins, following the impatient, puffy-cheeked Sora, pointing furiously for them to hurry up.

  “Well, okay. Even if there’s nothing left of you when this is done… I’ll make sure to put a flower on your grave.”

  “I don’t know if you’re being serious or not, but thanks.”

  As they continued deeper into the ruins, Aiden found his protective fire being buffered by some unseen force that came from everywhere, as if the air itself was infused with it.

  The twisted landscape around them seemed to mirror the complexity of emotions churning in his chest.

  “You know, Sora would help you.”

  “I know that now,” Aelion replied, stepping carefully around a puddle of something that might once have been water but now gleamed with an oily, unnatural sheen. “But you have to understand—I’ve known her for what, a few weeks? I spent my entire life hiding who I was, defending myself from accusations of being connected to The Darkness.”

  He gestured at the corruption surrounding them. “Look at this place. This is what The Darkness does. This is what people think I’m capable of. Trust isn’t exactly my strongest virtue when everyone assumes you’re an unnaturally gifted monster, waiting to spread my wings.”

  Aiden nodded reluctantly, his own feet finding easier purchase on the broken ground.

  “I haven’t known her much longer than you have, but I get your point.” His voice grew quieter, more introspective. “I have my own problems with truth-telling. It’s hard being the secrets keeper, holding the trust of multiple people.”

  They passed through what had once been an artistic hallway, its paintings torn from the walls, frames half-rotten, and faces scratched out.

  “My question isn’t about being truthful,” Aiden continued, his voice echoing strangely in the dead air. “It’s about what secrets are appropriate to keep. Oftentimes, you have no choice but to be less than transparent out of respect for people’s confidence. The line between breaking that confidence and protecting the people you care about…that’s where I struggle the most.”

  The path wound upward toward the palace proper, its honey-colored stones now blackened and cracked like old bones. As they climbed, Aiden felt eyes on him, but not from the shadows—not physically, but spiritually, as if the very stone was alive, pulsing with probing hands, reaching for them.

  “A heavy burden… I can’t relate. I haven’t had anyone who trusts me enough to share secrets with.”

  Aiden’s smile turned somewhat reflective, looking back at the last three years. “There’s always room for a change in habit. Maybe trust requires two people to share… Mmm. It seems we’ll have to cut this heart-to-heart short.”

  “Seems that way… Honeydew’s old throne room.”

  His flames automatically brightened as they approached what had once been grand entrance doors. The massive portals hung askew on twisted hinges, revealing only darkness beyond. Yet, it vanished the moment they stepped through the ruined doorway.

  Pillars of twisted crystal stretched toward a vaulted ceiling that had partially collapsed, allowing sickly light to filter through the gaps. At the far end, where a throne might once have stood, there was only a gaping hole that seemed to lead down into infinite darkness.

  “Would you look at that, a hidden entrance,” Aiden mumbled as their cross-armed guide jabbed toward it with her tail. “What is up with your uh, Sora AI being so moody?”

  “It wasn’t by my design. I simply wanted to shape it into a pattern that would take us to the seven doors. Down there? And what is an AI?” Aelion asked, staring into the darkness with obvious reluctance.

  “Down there, and don’t worry about it,” Aiden confirmed, his flames expanding to illuminate the rough-hewn steps that descended into the earth. “Do you know what this place is?”

  “Other than a private royal chamber? No, I do not.”

  The descent felt endless. Each step took them further from the corrupted daylight above and deeper into a darkness that seemed almost alive. Aiden’s and Magical Sora’s flames provided the only illumination, casting wild shadows that danced across walls carved with protective runes that no longer functioned.

  “I am…concerned about the magic here,” Aelion noted, his voice echoing strangely in the confined space. “There is clear power being projected. And these runes are protective charms, yet it is almost as if the power were redirected from them. It’s…inverted. Turned inside out.”

  “Does that have anything to do with it?”

  He pointed at a gentle, golden glow that shimmered in the doorway ahead. The passage opened into the vast chamber.

  Humming with active energy was a radiant artifact, its honey-colored light pulsing from the central pedestal in steady, heartbeat-like rhythms. The corruption that was claiming the kingdom above seemed unable to penetrate here, held at bay by barriers of pure, crystalline force.

  Aelion stopped dead in his tracks, dropping to one knee and holding his head.

  “No, she activated it…”

  “Aelion?”

  Aiden watched as Aelion’s breathing slowed, staring at the golden heart. “The defensive core is causing The Darkness to accelerate above. That’s why this chamber is clean when everything outside is getting worse. I think…it’s by design.”

  “That’s not good… By she, do you mean Sela?”

  “Only she could have activated it.”

  “Fair point.” He approached the Heart cautiously, his flames responding to its energy with colors he’d never seen before—deep golds and silvers that seemed to sing in harmony with the crystal’s pulse. “Heads up… I think this thing is laced with fae Founder magic, masked as normal fae magic. You good to keep going?”

  Aelion forced himself up, tattoos now shimmering as he stumbled toward another hallway that led deeper underground. The little Sora sprite sputtered but sat cross-legged in the air, waiting for them to continue.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I’m fine… Hidden Founder magic? If that’s the case, does that mean Sela is related to The Morrigan? How does this all connect to me?”

  “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Aiden said, taking one last look at the artifact before moving to support the fae prince.

  My flames didn’t react like this before when Sela used her magic. She doesn’t feel like a fae Founder, but Aelion has traces of Founder magic infused into him… That doesn’t bode well for speculation.

  Proceeding down the ancient-looking corridors, Aiden paid close attention to the murals along the walls. Unlike the destroyed artwork above, these had been preserved by the same magic protecting the Heart chamber. They seemed to shift and move in his peripheral, which was totally normal.

  “Hey, Aelion, what do you make of these?”

  Stumbling along, the fae’s emerald eyes scanned them with a deep frown.

  “These don’t look like typical fae royal lineages,” he noted. “Three figures surrounding a child…obviously The Morrigan—but the artistic style is different than what I’m accustomed to seeing in their journal entries. Newer. Almost…entirely divergent. And those symbols…”

  His flames flickered as they passed scenes that depicted magic being woven in ways he didn’t recognize. Not the elegant, structured magic of modern fae courts, but something more primal, more fundamental…more Founder.

  A king and queen bowing before the three fae women. The child in these paintings had honey-colored hair like Sela, but the figures around her…

  “These don’t match any fae nobility I know of. And this magical working—it looks like they’re creating something, not just teaching. What is this seal it shows here… What is this place that is shown in the background?”

  Aiden grimaced as it registered to him immediately. “The moon… Earth’s moon. Now why would the fae Founders be operating at a site where The Foundation has total jurisdiction?”

  Aelion shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that organization. It’s not mentioned anywhere in our records, but monster communities talk about them with fear. This here… This man with a robe and staff that is working with The Morrigan. What is this depicting?”

  The murals grew more complex as they descended, showing what appeared to be a great working of magic involving multiple powerful beings, all centered around the same honey-haired child, which led them to a large chamber—the place Jin had showed them.

  Seven doorways, each marked with runes that seemed to shift and change when observed directly. At the center stood a massive gate, its surface rippling like disturbed water, clearly activated and ready for use.

  “Okay. This is it,” Aiden whispered, swallowing the saliva that gathered in his throat as he looked around. “Any idea what to do next? My guess is we just go through the—”

  He paused as a flash of light pulsed outward, and three figures exited the gate, voices familiar and engaged in what sounded like heated conversation: Elder Rosewood, Eyia, and Sela.

  “—will answer our questions truthfully, or you will discover that my mother’s realm has far worse fates than simple imprisonment.”

  Eyia’s formal and aggressive tone made Aiden breathe a sigh of relief. Jin’s timing with things were starting to become scary.

  “Eyia?” Aiden called out, his flames brightening as the three figures emerged from the blinding light. “Uh… Did Jin send you too?”

  [Elder Rosewood (Our Discipline Fae Attempting To Kill Sela!)]

  Elder Rosewood gasped as another wave of exhaustion crashed over her, the oppressive atmosphere of the realm they’d entered stripping away what remained of her strength.

  The corrupted Darkness artifact in her trembling hands flickered weakly, its malevolent energy all but extinguished by forces somehow beyond her ability to grasp.

  “This is…impossible,” she wheezed, staggering back as ice began to crystallize around the artifact’s edges—not natural ice, but something that existed below the molecular level, freezing magic, time, and reality itself. “How can you move in this environment? It’s…hard to breathe.”

  Eyia advanced as if floating through the air. Mist billowed around them, her crystal sword gleaming with inner light as twelve muscular women faded into the veil.

  “You feel it now, do you not? Every breath you take in my mother’s realm strips away strength and promotes weakness… Every moment is a battle for your existence. So is the path of the valkyrie, the path of war and conquest begins with one’s own soul.”

  Rosewood tried to channel more power through the artifact, but the corruption was now more ice than shadow, sealed in temporal stasis. Her legs buckled as the weight of eternity itself—no, her own soul—pressed down upon her shoulders.

  “Why?” she gasped as Eyia directed her sword in front of her. Abruptly, her hands snapped together as if magnetic, and fundamental ice spread up her arms, binding her arms in restraints that locked away not just movement but magic itself. “Why protect the fallen queen? She is dangerous—more dangerous than you know. How can beings so young have such power yet so little wisdom? Talent that goes beyond fiction into myth?”

  “What one views as wise, to another it is folly. History proves wisdom, not the speaker of it,” Eyia whispered, dismissing her sword as she stood over her. “My wisdom is in faith and a bond that binds my hope to a clarion future. Unlike you, I do not betray those who place their trust in me. That is wisdom.”

  The ice completed its work, creating a temporal lock around the Darkness artifact that froze it in a moment of stasis where its corruption could spread no further.

  It was impossible.

  Nothing.

  No magic, no science, and not even Sora’s Founder magic had this powerful of an effect on The Darkness. Yet, in this oppressive realm of conquest and transcendent power, it was as helpless as she.

  Rosewood found herself completely bound, her tens of millennia of gathered power and wisdom reduced to nothing in this realm of absolute endings.

  “What is this place?”

  Eyia’s illuminated, frost-like eyes tightened, one hand rising to the delicate diamond necklace lying against her chest. “This is but a small piece of Fólkvangr, my mother’s realm. A family realm I have been given safekeeping of… Sessrúmnir. Within it, I cannot lose, for my people are with me…”

  “Now,” the valkyrie declared, her voice carrying the weight of cosmic authority, “you will take us to the truth of Sela’s heritage. Restitution must be made.”

  [Sela (Our Former Unseelie!)]

  Sela’s mind reeled as they followed Rosewood into the memory sphere, fragmented memories crashing through her consciousness like waves against a breaking shore.

  I’m…tethered to something. No, multiple things… People?

  The Heart of Honeydew’s energy seemed to resonate somewhere, amplifying something within her, bringing buried truths to the surface with painful clarity.

  She saw herself as a child, running through sun-dappled gardens while her parents watched with loving eyes. But then the images split, fractured, showing multiple versions of the same moment—she was on Earth’s moon.

  In one memory, her mother was a regal fae woman with silver hair and kind eyes, teaching her daughter to weave light into flowers. In another, the same woman stood beside two others—three figures pouring their essence into a small, honey-haired child. Nearby, a fourth figure, wrapped in robes that seemed to contain the night sky itself, guided the ritual with hands that moved like orchestrated starlight.

  “The memories are bleeding through,” she whispered, pressing her hands to her temples as they passed through what must have been a gateway—a space of pure memory. “But they don’t make sense. Sometimes there are two of my mother… Sometimes three. And always that figure in the star-robes… And why am I on Earth’s moon from time to time? Hmm?”

  She blinked as they were once again inside the room with seven doors, the unusual history painted across the walls, and the gate that had been closed…was open.

  She’d opened it.

  Not by stepping into the sphere of memories, but by unlocking her memories.

  She blinked again, noticing they weren’t alone.

  Sora’s two schoolgirl crushes were standing side by side, watched in fascination and growing alarm, because, of course, it would have to connect back to Sora.

  Sela didn’t have much time to reflect on the implications as her silver eyes began to glow with the same honey-colored light that emanated from the Heart. Whatever was happening to her, it was clearly connected to her former kingdom, to the defensive magic her parents had woven into the very stones.

  Knowledge came rushing back.

  Understanding, if in pieces and clouded in fog.

  “The Tower on the moon. The Moon Wizard…" she breathed, the name coming to her unbidden. “My father…is the Moon Wizard. No… No, that can’t be right. I killed my father and mother,” she groaned, putting a hand to her heart as a throbbing pulsed through her core.

  Her chest felt like it was rupturing out, Sora’s magical seed inside of her flaring as The Darkness writhed, and her eyes gradually widened.

  “Unless everything… All that I am…is a lie.”

  The fragmented images began to align like pieces of a cosmic puzzle:

  The loving father of her childhood memories and the star-robed figure guiding her creation merged into a single being—a wizard whose domain was the space between worlds, who had worked with The Morrigan to create her as a vessel capable of containing and purifying The Darkness itself.

  “I’m…the daughter of The Morrigan and the Moon Wizard.”

  From her position on the floor, Elder Rosewood’s voice carried a bitter sigh. “And thus, the dream unravels and everything we’ve fought to protect crumbles into The Darkness.”

  Tremors ran through the earth, taking all of them—excluding Eyia—to their butts, and with it came the realization. The Heart of Honeydew wasn’t a defensive device…it was her heart, separated and the collection of her birthright: it was her Core Essence.

  She was a shell.

  A hollow remnant of the unifying seed that had birthed her as a 4th Generation Founder of the fae.

  But that was only one truth of dozens left circling beyond the fog.

  “What do you mean ‘dream unravels,’” Aiden demanded, his flames flaring protectively around all of them as the tremors continued, the murals along the wall separating and dancing up toward the room where her heart waited to be claimed. “What have you been hiding?”

  Eyia crossed her arms, scowling at the defeated elder. “You know more than you let on, old one. There are things you have concluded, despite not having full knowledge. Yes?”

  Rosewood’s laugh held no humor. “Hiding? I am likely more in the dark than Sela at this point… As far as I know, Ember and her mother’s exchange was only supposed to make Sora start investigating. Create questions that would lead to larger questions. Why? Who ordered it? I cannot say. All I was told was to make sure Sora and Kari were left to their own devices.”

  Sela’s mind was already working in overdrive, occasionally feeling the schism of past memories and current thoughts blending together.

  Sora was meant to start investigating… The invitation to Avalon, her being at my trial, and forcing me to be nearby due to punishment. It all stems back to the High Queen.

  She pushed for Sora’s help to purge The Darkness within me and reverse the Unseelie process.

  She made sure Sora was in a free position to start poking threads.

  She…gave me an example to follow.

  Her vision of the sly, gorgeous ruler didn’t fracture; it deepened, seeing that mischievous smile playing at the corners of her mind.

  Mia made it clear that no one was to directly force her daughter into any position…so she used Ember as a catalyst. Titania wants my memories returned. Oberon seems to be in another camp but won’t stop her. Our history…

  She looked up at the murals as the last one flew back up the tunnel to infuse into her heart.

  Our history is a lie.

  What is the truth then?

  If I grew up on Earth’s moon…

  When did Avalon truly begin?

  What part did the Foundation play in this?

  …What is The Darkness?

  Sela's hands clenched into fists, silver light beginning to leak from her skin like liquid starlight. “I’m starting to question whether this school exists at all, or if it’s just a huge cover-up for what happened—what really happened three years ago… Because I don’t know if Avalon itself existed. I think,” she paused, looking at the 7th door, “I think…this is all just a dream.”

  She turned to Aelion, feeling the magic shift—seeing the world differently now. Her voice gaining strength even as her body trembled with the force of revelation.

  “You are a piece of this puzzle. We need to go through the doors…but to do so, I must retrieve my heart. What do you have to say?”

  Eyia, Rosewood, and Aiden maintained their silence as Aelion kept a stoic expression, vision fixated on her.

  Several seconds passed as he straightened and glanced down at the tattoos on his arm.

  “I analyzed the door already… To get inside, we need two fae Founders and two ways to bridge our magics… Sora’s fur and Aiden’s fire. The question is…will an artificial Founder be enough, and why lock this door behind such an impossible requirement? Whatever is behind here…they didn’t want it getting out.”

  Eyia stiffened, everyone glancing her way with alarm.

  Yet, the blue-eyed girl looked as if she’d just realized something world-ending.

  “What is it?” Aiden mumbled, fire flaring inside his hand as he scanned the space for danger.

  Eyia pointed at the door. “That must be false, Aelion. Jin walked through the door. Your analysis must be flawed.”

  Sela’s tension melted like butter, a short laugh escaping each of their mouths—well, except Rosewood.

  “Eyia,” she snickered, “Jin operates on a different level. Something tells me the dragon has her own methods of bypassing Founder seals.”

  “Oh. That is likely true, friends… But worth of note, it is!” she huffed, looking troubled.

  As their laughter faded, Sela led the way up the hallway to where her heart rested. Aelion remained silent, brooding, while Aiden explained their own path in getting here.

  None of it truly sparked much of Sela’s interest… except for the part about The Darkness strengthening in the area due to her activated heart.

  If it is responding to me, rising and collecting around my power, her gaze flicked to Rosewood, then maybe there is something about me unraveling this dream we’re in.

  What happens with The Darkness if the dream ends?

  Hmm… Answers must be behind the door.

  Entering the chamber, she didn’t hesitate to grab her possession, wincing as the raw power beat against her soul. The moment her fingers touched it, the heart became light, absorbing into her veins and feeding her with nutrients.

  The most curious part?

  It merged with Sora’s Seed, beginning the process of its bloom.

  The transformation was immediate and overwhelming. Energy coursed through her veins like liquid starlight, and with it came clarity she’d never experienced before. The fog that had clouded her thoughts for years lifted, revealing truths that had been hidden beneath layers of constructed memory.

  This is what I was meant to be, she realized, feeling Sora’s purification seed and her own essence harmonizing into something greater than either part alone. Not just a vessel for containing The Darkness, but something that could potentially unravel the entire construct we’re trapped within… My power constructed the dream. So…was this actually my plan?

  Did Titania take on the role of teacher and idol…because I asked her to?

  I have to know!

  When they returned to the seven doors, Sela stepped toward the seventh door, her silver eyes drawn to the runes that pulsed in harmony with her awakening heart. But as she approached, she felt the seal’s resistance—this wasn't something she could open alone, even with her restored essence.

  She placed her hands on the central symbol. She immediately felt the Moon Wizard’s presence—not the loving father of false memories, but the cosmic architect who had designed her very existence.

  Aelion nodded, pulling out the vial of Sora’s copper hair. His tattoos began to glow as he extracted a small amount of the fur, the strands igniting into that familiar copper flame that danced between his fingers. It was only then that Sela even noticed a little fire sprite-like Sora hovering near Aiden’s head, pouting.

  What is that about? Later…

  “Right,” Aiden mumbled, moving into position as his rainbow flames began to swirl in complex patterns around his hands. “My causality will bind you both together with Sora’s Desire magic. All that’s left is…”

  “…To link our desires,” Sela finished, placing her hands on the central symbol, feeling the Moon Wizard’s presence immediately—not the loving father of false memories, but the cosmic architect who had designed her very existence.

  “Now,” she glanced toward Rosewood, seeing flashes of scenes from around the realm. In those images, she saw Sora, facing Fen in the arena. “Now…we get answers.”

  The door didn't open—it dissolved entirely, revealing a dimensional space that stretched into infinity. Knowledge flooded their minds like a breaking dam, not as memories but as direct understanding of the source code governing their reality.

  And what they saw shattered everything she believed.

  The multiverse they knew—vast, complex, filled with countless realms—flickered like a projection. Beneath it lay the truth: Earth. Miami.

  A large suite where a bullied half-Irish, half-Japanese human girl sat.

  That was real.

  Everything else?

  Well, it had been constructed around a single moment. A moment when the entire construct of this multiverse had been shattered when a lost wolf pup had stumbled into Mia’s territory—Tiri.

  “She’s here,” Aiden breathed, understanding dawning. “It wasn’t Kari, Eric, or me… It was Tiri who broke everything.”

  The small wolf’s pure fenris nature, the raw power of her uncle that carried through that small opening, had acted like a hurricane, shattering the barriers between dreams and reality.

  Avalon Academy, the raw realm itself, created by The Morrigan, forever changed as a child crashed into the moon’s surface…breaking a seal that released something foreign to their very Existence—The Darkness, infecting her mothers…The Morrigan.

  What came next?

  Her mothers’ swift action…weaving a false reality into place, with her at its center, seeking a certain fox mother’s help.

  The issue?

  Mia’s hands were tired, lest she awaken her daughter’s latent powers too early, killing her. And the last three years were what came from that.

  “We’re living in a dream,” Sela whispered, her voice echoing in the infinite space. “A reality The Morrigan wove to contain The Darkness after it infected them—after Tiri’s crash broke the moon’s seal and released something foreign to our very existence.”

  She could see it all now: her mothers’ swift action, seeking Mia’s advice to construct this false reality while keeping boundaries with her daughter.

  They stood at the edge of truth, finally understanding why Jin had orchestrated their discovery—because as long as they lived in the constructed lie, The Darkness wouldn’t spread.

  It wasn’t just any form of infection: it was memetic.

  And now that the lie was unfolding, it was gaining power.

  It was gaining power fast…

  But that acceleration could work in their favor, due to two girls:

  Sora…and Fen.

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