The chamber of despair fell silent, save for the echo of Vel Tharuuns laughter.

It lingered in the dark like a wound that would not close.

Vear knelt, broken, the weight of a thousand battles crushed into his frame. No sword could shield him now, no vow could silence his grief. In his arms, the space where Annastara had been seemed heavier than iron, emptier than the void. Tears streamed down his face and for the first time, Lyra saw the unshakable warrior undone. Lyra sank beside him. She was not Annastaras true mother, yet she had loved the child as fiercely as if she had borne her herself. Now that love tore at her with equal ferocity. She gathered Vear into her arms, not only to steady him, but to keep herself from shattering.

And so they remained, bound together by grief, as the shadow of Vel Tharuun passed deeper into the marrow of their fate. And so I speak now, for what followed must be told.

Far away from that chamber, far beyond the Authoritys reach, there is a world beneath a yellow sun. Terafna. You would know it, if you still remembered Earth

Mountains rise like frozen waves, valleys drowned in oceans, rivers glimmering like veins of silver. But in the deepest valley of all stands a cliff unlike any otherliving stone, eternal, untouched by season or storm.

Within its heart, the Mother Stone keeps her children, waiting. Seeds of form and memory lie dormant, sealed in silence, until the cycle turns. And each cycle, the MoRoc gather, waiting for the stone to give birth again.

A thousand years have passed since Annastara was taken. A thousand years of silence. Empires have risen and collapsed in less time. Stars have burned out in less time. And still the MoRoc wait, crouched along the cliff face like guardians carved from eternity, listening for the breath of a new sibling stirring in the dark.

At last the wall shuddered, shivered with light. The stone flexed as if drawing breath. The MoRoc pressed close, their granite wings scraping the valley air. The cliff seemed to ripple outward, and from its living wall a figure began to take shape. Slowly, unbearably slowly, the stone yielded and released a child.

The MoRoc recoiled not in fear, but astonishment. The form was not of stone. It was human.

One turned toward the distant hills where, upon the horizon, a castles silhouette pierced the sky, as if the world itself remembered the old blood.

An elder stepped forward. With careful hands he wrapped the naked girl in a cloak of woven fiber and spoke in the deep resonance of their kind: Sister, speak. Has the Mother Stone bestowed upon you a name?

Though no human ear had ever grasped the MoRoc tongue, the girl understood. She did not know how she came to be, nor why the word pressed itself into her mouth. But she spoke it all the same.

Annastara.

The elders stone lips curved in what might have been a smile.

Welcome, Annastara of the Stone. Come. Join your brothers and sisters.

She stepped forward, unafraid. The MoRoc embraced her. And though she was only seven, she carried within her the power of the stone itself. Already it lay coiled inside her bones, waiting. The gift to become as they were.

But that is a tale for another time.

And I tell you this when Annastara rises again, she will not rise alone. In her shadow, Vel Tharuun stirs.