The peace that had settled over the North was a fragile, crystalline thing. It felt like the first thin sheet of ice on a lake—beautiful to behold, yet capable of shattering at the slightest pressure. For twelve months, the Sanctum of the Sanguine Moon had flourished. The mountain, once a jagged tomb of obsidian, was now a verdant paradise where the waterfalls ran clear and the air was perpetually sweet with the scent of Dawn-Lilies. The "Lithic Vanguard" had transitioned from an army of traumatized survivors into a society of builders, scholars, and families.
I stood on the Sovereign's Terrace, my hands resting on the cool stone of the railing. The morning sun was warm on my skin, but it no longer triggered the frantic, solar ignition of my Hallowed fire. Ever since the singularity where I had absorbed the Matriarch, my power had become... quiet. It was a subterranean river, deep and slow, no longer the raging wildfire that had remade the world.
I was six months pregnant.
