The air inside the old hall had cooled to stillness.
The lanterns burned low, their light catching the dust drifting through the arches. The elders were gone, leaving only Brassmane’s silhouette in the centre of the empty floor.
He exhaled slowly, ran a clawed hand through his mane, and tapped a rune on his bracer.
A soft shimmer.
A projection flared to life.
Caedrix Umbranox Arcturus materialised in ghostly gold above the Assembly circle.
Not the regal, iron-clad councillor the world saw.
This was the Umbranox of old nights and dangerous choices—hair unbound, a weariness behind her eyes she would deny to her dying breath.
“You look like you’ve wrestled a hurricane,” she said dryly. “Don’t tell me the Trials broke you. It would be terribly inconvenient.”
Brassmane snorted, lowering himself onto the dais like an old lion easing onto a stone bed.
“Broken?” he murmured. “No. But the wind was keen, and I… am older than I pretend.”
A faint smirk tugged at her lips. “So the usual, then.”
“Aye,” he said, a ghost of warmth in his tone. “Save that this storm had a name.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Celeste Astallan, I presume.”
“You presume correctly.”
They shared a short, quiet sound—something that was almost a laugh, but felt more like old wounds acknowledging each other.
Her expression softened, if only barely. “Tell me. Did they survive?”
“Aye,” he said. “All of them. Bruised, insufferably proud… but alive. They shone, Umbranox. Like lightning deciding to walk.”
A glimmer of pride passed over her face.
“Good. Let the Council choke on that. Proof that hybrids can master their magic without being chained to those damned runes.”
“They will choke,” he murmured. “Though whether on dread or arrogance, I could not say.”
Her smirk faded. “What occurred, Brassmane?”
He tapped his claws gently against stone, like a drum counting down something inevitable.
“Celeste’s Trial went sideways. No, not sideways. Skyward. Her mana nearly tore the valley apart. And then… something appeared.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of something?”
“A aspect,” he said quietly. “Made of crystal and light. Wings and horns. It placed a circlet on her head. The elders are calling it Mamgoleuni. Or, as your Doctrine would name her…”
He paused.
“Motherlight.”
Umbranox froze.
The light from her side of the feed flickered.
“Motherlight,” she repeated, barely breathing the word. “Are you certain?”
“Arlo confirmed what he could. The others are half-worshipping her already. The Crefft y Goleuni prophecy—Ten Lights, rebirth, the circle core, the feline line—it all matches too closely for comfort.”
She leaned closer to the projection, voice dropping low.
“Brassmane, if the Council gets wind of this—”
“They will swallow their fear with chains,” he said. “I have not forgotten what they did to the last child they named chosen.”
“I remember,” she said, her tone a blade sheathed in velvet. “I recall the screams.”
They fell silent for a long moment—two old soldiers remembering what it cost to keep hope alive in a world that hated it.
Finally, she sighed, rubbing her temple.
“You always get the impossible assignments, don’t you?”
“Someone’s got to.”
“Protect her,” she said firmly. “Keep her close. Don’t let the clans pull her apart. They’ll come for her in pieces—dragons, unicorns, mages, every last one of them trying to stake a claim.”
Brassmane gave a tired smile.
“They already tried. You should’ve seen it. Every beast and banner wanted her bloodline. Half of them swore it was destiny, the other half saw a weapon. Even a few cats tried to file for custody.”
Umbranox’s lip curled. “Of course they did.”
“She is not a prize,” Brassmane whispered, ancient sorrow threading his words. “She is a child carrying too much night inside her.”
“Far too much.”
“Then we’re agreed,” he said. “No politics. No prophecies. She trains under me until she’s ready. I’ll tell her what she needs to know when she’s ready to hear it.”
Umbranox nodded, but her voice carried quiet gravity.
“If she truly is what they say, she’ll draw eyes we can’t shield her from. The Council will suspect. The clans will whisper. Brassmane—this could unravel everything we’ve built.”
He met her gaze squarely.
“Then we hold the line. Like we always do.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips.
“Still the stubborn old lion.”
“And you’re still the scheming cat.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said, grinning. “Always circling, waiting for me to trip over my own mane so you can fix the mess.”
She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “And yet, somehow, it’s always you cleaning up mine.”
The warmth between them lingered a moment too long before she straightened.
“And Owain?”
“Hm?”
“Don’t get yourself killed protecting that girl.”
He smiled faintly.
“No promises.”
Umbranox’s image shimmered faintly in the dark, just as Brassmane started to deactivate the rune.
He hesitated.
His voice came out low, rough with something unspoken.
“There’s one more thing.”
Her brows lifted. “You sound like you’re about to ruin my night.”
“Celeste’s core,” he said, ignoring the jab. “It is not like the others. The hybrids’ cores resonate in unison, aye, but hers… hers is different. The readings were unstable until I realised they were not malfunctioning.”
Umbranox’s eyes sharpened. “What were they doing?”
“Syncing.”
“Syncing?”
“Through her. All of them. Every hybrid in the Trial. Their cores resonated with hers. It was like she was pulling at them. A conductor in a sea of instruments.”
He swallowed.
“She has a Kymara core.”
Umbranox’s face went still.
For a long moment she did not blink.
Then, in a voice tight with alarm, she said, “That is not possible.”
“It should not be,” he admitted. “But it is happening. Whatever she is, that Kymara core of hers is changing the rules.”
A long silence followed.
The soft hum of static filled the gap between them.
Then Umbranox spoke again, quieter, more to herself than him.
“How on earth did she get that core? Something is not right about this.”
“You are thinking what I am thinking.”
“When I found out she was Kenaz’s daughter, I already felt the ground shift. But this—this is another layer altogether.”
Her gaze flicked aside, as though searching her own thoughts for logic that would not come.
“How does a second-generation hybrid exist without Council knowledge? How does one get a Kymara core implanted without a single report crossing my desk? And why does her sister appear beside her, born with a mana structure that seems designed to balance the impossible thing in Celeste’s chest?”
Brassmane’s mane bristled slightly.
“Are you sure, Umbranox? That none of this came from Aurora’s end?”
Her expression cracked.
Just for a heartbeat.
“Aurora was my best friend.”
Her voice trembled with old grief, then steadied into the cold tone of a strategist.
“She told me everything. Or near enough.”
“Near enough is not everything.”
“No,” Umbranox said softly. “It is not.”
Brassmane watched her.
The old hall seemed to hold its breath.
Umbranox continued, slower now.
“I have spent years wondering whether Aurora did something reckless. Whether she discovered something, panicked, hid the girls, and got arrested before she could tell anyone. It would fit her heart. Not her judgement, but her heart.”
Brassmane’s eyes narrowed. “But?”
“But I do not think Aurora was the mastermind.”
Brassmane went still.
The colour drained beneath the gold of his mane.
“You are certain?”
“No. That is what frightens me.”
She leaned closer, voice dropping almost to a whisper.
“Aurora would have told me if she had done something this dangerous. She would have told me about them. About her daughters. About the core. She was secretive when frightened, yes, but she was not a strategist of this calibre. This is too neat. Too layered. Too deliberate.”
Brassmane’s claws curled against the stone.
“Then who?”
Umbranox’s eyes turned cold.
“Her mother.”
Brassmane went pale.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he breathed, “That is worse.”
“Yes,” Umbranox said. “Much worse.”
He rubbed a paw over his jaw, claws rasping softly against his mane.
“Aurora’s mother had the reach. The bloodline knowledge. The old family access. And the patience.”
“She also had reason,” Umbranox said. “Grievance. Ambition. Faith, perhaps. Or something dressed as faith.”
Brassmane looked away.
The old lion suddenly seemed older still.
“If she planned this, then Aurora may have been used as much as the girls.”
“That is what I fear.”
“And Kenaz?”
Umbranox’s expression shifted again.
There was grief there too.
Sharper.
Hotter.
“Kenaz was looking into Zygurr before all this went down.”
Brassmane’s head snapped back toward her.
“What?”
“He sent inquiries quietly. Too quietly for him, frankly. Supply records. Candy shipments. Shell companies. Old confectionery licences tied to medical research fronts. At first I thought he was chasing smuggling.”
“And now?”
“Now I think he found a thread and pulled.”
Brassmane’s voice dropped. “Did he know about the girls?”
“I don’t know.Maybe?”
The admission clearly cost her.
“But Kenaz did not spook easily. If he went quiet, it means he found something that frightened him.”
Brassmane’s mane flickered low and dangerous.
“Zygurr, Aurora’s disappearance, Celeste’s core, Lumina’s balancing function, the candy undead plague…”
“Connected,” Umbranox said.
“Or made to look connected.”
“Either way, someone built a road beneath our feet while we argued over maps.”
Brassmane stood slowly.
His shadow stretched long across the Assembly floor.
“You think someone planned this.”
“Yes,” she said grimly. “And I intend to find out who.”
“Then we are of one mind. Whatever this is, it is bigger than the Trials. Bigger than the Council. And it is moving faster than we can see.”
Umbranox’s projection leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Then solve it. Quickly. Before the wrong people do.”
He nodded once, heavy and certain.
“Aye. We’ll dig. Quietly.”
The connection crackled.
She lingered a moment longer, studying his face—the same weathered lion who had stood beside her through rebellions and reform.
“Take care, old friend,” she murmured. “Light does not change the world. It exposes what the world truly is, and you may not like what you find.”
He gave a sad, knowing smile.
“Then may we learn to walk in it.”
The feed dimmed and vanished.
Brassmane stood alone, the silence pressing close.
He looked toward the empty seats of the elders, his mane flickering with dim gold like a dying fire.
“Aurora,” he murmured, voice rough, “what in the gods’ names were you caught in?”
He turned toward the window, where dawn was just breaking over the ruins of the Trial valley.
“We need answers,” he said quietly, the weight of it sinking into his bones. “And fast.”
He stared toward the darkened runes, mane catching the faintest glint of dawn through the broken skylight.
“By the Stars…”
His voice was low.
Rough.
“She is going to change everything.”
The echo of Umbranox’s transmission faded, leaving only the low hum of the Assembly Hall’s runes.
Brassmane stood in the dim, head bowed, the weight of their conversation hanging like lead on his mane.
He turned toward the door—
and froze.
Something shifted.
A shimmer, faint as breath, bending the air.
Without hesitation, he spun and launched a fireball the size of a wagon wheel.
The explosion threw light across the chamber.
From the flames, a figure crashed to the floor—cloaked, half-invisible, mask flickering with mana distortion.
Saff.
Brassmane’s stomach dropped.
“No…”
He caught her by the collar before she could stand, claws closing like iron.
“Traitor!” he roared, the sound shaking the rafters. “How much did you hear?”
Pinned against the stone, Saff’s smirk glinted in the flame.
“Enough,” she hissed.
Brassmane’s pupils narrowed. His other paw kindled another fireball, heat rolling through the chamber.
“I’m sorry, girl,” he growled, voice trembling despite his fury. “You were one of my best. But this—this cannot get out.”
Her smirk widened.
“You won’t kill me, old man.”
Light flared from her palm.
A shock rune.
It struck his chest like lightning, knocking him backward a few paces and smoking the edges of his armour.
She slipped from his grip and vanished in a burst of mana shimmer.
Brassmane snarled, shaking off the stun.
“Saff!”
He tore through the broken doors, flames bursting at his heels.
Night had fallen over Rustrows, the sprawling Mythic complex now lit only by mana lanterns and the moon.
On the rooftops above, a flicker of movement.
Her.
He bounded after her, claws gouging the tiles, fire trailing his steps.
She darted between chimneys and banners, her cloak flashing silver under the moonlight. He saw the staff on her back—the same one he had given her the day she had earned her place among the Mythic Guard.
“You don’t have to do this!” he shouted, leaping from one roof to the next. “You can still come back, you reckless girl!”
She landed on the edge of a tall spire, turning just enough for her face to catch the light—eyes burning amber through the cracks in her mask.
“And stay weak?” she spat. “Never.”
She swung her staff, sending a wave of raw energy at him. He braced his claws, deflecting it with a wall of fire.
“Weakness is not what you think it is, Saff! Strength is not just tearing things down!”
“Then what is it, old man?” she snapped, her voice shaking with equal parts rage and grief. “Waiting for permission to matter? Begging the Council for scraps of respect?”
Brassmane’s throat tightened. “This is not you. You are lost.”
Her expression cracked into something fierce and sad all at once.
“No. I’ve just stopped pretending.”
She pointed toward the horizon.
Above the distant city of Clawdiff, something vast and red moved—a dragon general, suspended in chains of candy and death, its hollow eyes burning with yellow fire.
The Zombie Dragon.
Brassmane’s heart turned to stone.
“You’re a fool, Saff. That thing will kill you before it ever crowns you.”
She smiled faintly.
Almost tender.
“Maybe. But at least it won’t call me weak.”
She fired a bolt of white-hot mana, forcing him to block.
When the light cleared, she was gone.
Brassmane stood on the rooftop alone, wind tugging at his mane, the smell of ozone and ash clinging to the night.
He stared out toward the horizon, where that monstrous shape writhed above Clawdiff, and felt a pang deep in his chest.
“You were supposed to be better than me,” he whispered. “Not this.”
His claws closed over the scorched edge of the rooftop, embers glowing faintly in his fur.
Below, the Mythic city slept unaware of what was coming.
Above, the dead dragon turned its gaze toward the valley.
And Brassmane, heart heavy, whispered into the wind:
“Light help us all, Saff. You’ve no idea what you’ve woken.”
