The rain had followed her across the continent.
Amara stood by the window of her father's estate, watching the storm drift over the marble gardens. The lightning over the capital flickered like veins of silver in the clouds, and the reflection of the storm trembled across the floor-to-ceiling glass.
She had been summoned, not invited. The guards outside the chamber had bowed stiffly when she passed, their eyes avoiding hers. Everyone in the estate knew when Roman called for his daughter, it was never without reason.
The door behind her opened with the soft click of authority.
> "You're still watching storms," said the voice she had grown up fearing and loving in equal measure. "They never change, Amara. They only pass."
Chancellor Roman Voss stepped into the light — broad-shouldered, wrapped in a dark coat lined with the silver crest of the High Council. His hair, streaked with iron, caught the glow of the lightning outside. He looked every inch the ruler the world believed him to be: composed, sharp, untouchable.
Amara turned slightly but said nothing. The silence between them had always been a language of its own.
Roman studied her for a long moment before he spoke again.
> "You know why I called you here."
> "Because of Chuka," she said softly.
He didn't deny it.
> "The Pacific facility is gone. A relic of immense power was taken — the Heart of Azu'el. The Relic of Divine Strength. The reports suggest it responded to him… as if he were born for it."
Her chest tightened. She lowered her gaze.
> "Then he's alive."
Roman's eyes narrowed, a faint crack in his composure.
> "Alive, yes — and dangerously so. What he wields now could make him more than human. You understand what that means."
> "I understand that you'll want to find him," she said, her voice trembling, "and that you'll try to stop him like you do everything you don't control."
Roman's tone sharpened.
> "Don't mistake restraint for weakness. If I unleash the Council's hunters, he will not survive the week."
She spun to face him. "Then don't!"
The lightning outside flared, throwing silver across her face — a flicker of her mother's softness caught in her defiance. For a heartbeat, Roman said nothing. Then he sighed, stepping toward her, his voice lowering.
> "Amara… you don't understand the depth of what's begun. These relics — they are not fragments of myth. They are remnants of creation itself. And I will not let a reckless boy tear the world apart chasing destiny."
She wanted to argue, to shout that Chuka wasn't reckless, that he was the only one who had ever acted out of faith instead of greed. But before she could speak, Roman raised a hand — not in anger, but in command.
> "Enough," he said quietly. "I did not summon you here for a quarrel. I came to offer you a path."
Amara hesitated. "…A path?"
Roman walked toward the far end of the chamber, where a small pedestal held a crystalline bloom — the Relic of Divine Healing, its seven petals glowing faintly with living light. The air around it shimmered with warmth, gentle and alive.
> "This relic," he said, "chose you."
Her breath caught. "How—"
> "It responded the day the Heart of Azu'el awakened. When the Pacific tremor rippled through the ley network, every relic resonated in kind. This one reached for you, Amara. The guards saw it. It pulsed until they brought it to me."
He turned to face her fully now, his eyes sharp but strangely tender.
> "It seems even the Maker's will cannot be denied. You were born to wield the Relic of Healing. To understand it. To use it for the good of the world — not for sentiment, not for rebellion."
Amara's lips parted. "You mean to make me your weapon."
Roman's expression did not change. "No. I mean to make you safe — and to keep the boy alive."
That caught her off guard. "What?"
> "If you agree to train," he said, his tone measured and deliberate, "if you commit yourself to mastering the Relic of Healing under my supervision… I will ensure Chuka is left unharmed. No pursuit. No execution order. The Council will not touch him as long as I hold authority."
Her heart pounded.
> "And if I refuse?"
> "Then the Council will act without me," Roman said simply. "And you know what they'll do to him."
She turned away, gripping the edge of the glass wall. The city lights below blurred through her tears. Her father — ruthless, cunning, brilliant — had trapped her in a cage of mercy.
> "There's more," she whispered. "There's always more with you."
Roman's gaze softened almost imperceptibly.
> "Yes. You are never to see him again, Amara. Never contact him, never search for him. Let him walk his path, and you will walk yours. That is the condition."
The words cut deeper than any blade.
Her throat tightened, but she managed to speak.
> "You're asking me to let go of the only person who ever made me believe in something beyond power."
> "I'm asking you to save him," Roman said quietly. "Because if you stay in his orbit, the Council will use you to destroy him. This is the only way he survives."
The storm outside began to break, thunder fading into a dull whisper. Amara closed her eyes. The glow from the relic bathed her face in warm light — a promise, or a prison, she couldn't tell which.
Finally, she nodded.
> "I'll learn. I'll accept the relic."
Roman inclined his head slowly, relief flickering across his features for the briefest moment.
> "Then our deal is sealed. At dawn, your training begins."
---
That night, she descended alone into the sanctum where the Relic of Divine Healing awaited. The petals unfurled slightly as she approached, their golden light breathing against the stone walls.
When her hand touched it, a surge of warmth flooded her veins — not violent like Chuka's strength, but steady, calm, alive. She felt the flow of life through the earth, the gentle heartbeat of the world beneath the chaos of power.
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
> "You feel it too, don't you?" she whispered. "He's still out there."
The relic pulsed once, in affirmation.
Across the oceans, faint threads of energy shimmered — the same golden light connecting her heart to his. Through it, she felt him: the raw surge of power, the heartbeat of someone reborn.
He was alive.
He was growing stronger.
Amara smiled faintly through her tears. The ache in her chest eased, replaced by a quiet joy she couldn't explain.
> "Be safe, Chuka," she murmured. "And don't look back."
The relic glowed softly in her palm, as if blessing her words.
And for the first time since she had left him behind, Amara felt at peace — caught between the mercy of her relic and the memory of the man who had taught her what it truly meant to believe.
---