Light still clung to Caelum's vision when the mortal world snapped back into being. Air rushed into his lungs like he hadn't breathed in hours. His knees buckled. Lyra caught him before he hit the ground.
"Caelum. Look at me."
He did.
Her face was tight with worry. Her hands shook. Astra hovered behind her with unconscious tension, shoulders squared for a fight. Seraphine was already scanning him with quick, practiced motions. Elowen knelt at his other side, steadying his arm. Aradia stood a few feet away, eyes wide and haunted.
"What happened?" Lyra whispered.
Caelum swallowed. The Harbinger's last words echoed through him like an aftershock.
"Trial Three," he said. "I… finished it."
Aradia stepped closer. "Finished? Or survived?"
He hesitated. "Both."
Before anyone could push further, the Watchers moved.
Seven towering figures straightened as one. Their armor brightened with violet light. The First Watcher stepped forward.
"Judgment is rendered."
Astra muttered, "Here we go."
The First Watcher raised a hand. The air vibrated.
"Caelum Vale. Bearer of the Crown. You have passed the Trials. You are… acknowledged."
Seraphine's brows lifted. "Acknowledged? That's it?"
The Watcher's gaze slid toward her. "Do you expect celebration?"
Astra opened her mouth. Lyra clamped a hand over it.
The Crown above Caelum shimmered faintly into visibility, a halo of starlight and shifting runes. Not fully present. Not fully gone.
The Watcher continued, "You carry power that predates your world. You will be measured again."
Lyra snapped, "He just proved himself! How many times do you—"
This time Astra covered her mouth.
The First Watcher lifted its face toward the sky.
"But the Harbinger stirs. Our intervention ends."
Elowen tensed. "Ends? Now?"
"The Bearer must face his future without us."
A faint tremor rolled across the courtyard as the Watchers' forms began to unravel, violet light drifting upward like smoke carried by wind.
Caelum stepped forward. "Wait."
The First Watcher paused.
Caelum's voice dropped. "You knew the Harbinger wasn't bound forever."
"We knew."
"Then why judge me at all?"
The Watcher's eyes dimmed. "Because the universe prefers its champions whole."
Then every Watcher dissolved fully, vanishing into the sky until only silence remained.
Astra exhaled. "They always leave right before things get interesting."
Seraphine turned back to Caelum. "What did you face in the void?"
His jaw clenched. "Myself. My doubts. And the Harbinger."
Aradia flinched visibly.
Lyra pressed closer, her voice soft. "What did it say?"
Caelum forced the words out. "That next time we meet… truth won't be enough."
A hush fell. Even the wind seemed to still.
Then—
A pulse of energy rippled through the horizon.
Elowen gasped as vines burst from the courtyard stones, trembling violently. Animals across the Spire cried out as if sensing something ancient waking.
Seraphine's breath frosted in the sudden chill. "Is that…?"
Aradia whispered, "The boundary between realms is thinning."
Astra groaned. "Already? He literally just got back from a cosmic nightmare."
Lyra touched Caelum's cheek, grounding him. "We face it together. Whatever comes."
But Caelum wasn't looking at her.
His eyes were fixed on the horizon.
The sky—clear moments before—had begun to bruise with swirling violet clouds. Not the Harbinger itself.
A sign. A warning. A promise.
Seraphine stepped beside him. "Caelum. What is it?"
"The Harbinger isn't rising alone," he murmured. "Something else woke with it."
Astra's eyes widened. "Define 'something else.'"
Before Caelum could answer, the sky split—just a thin crack, a seam of purple light—but enough to send a shock through every magical ward in the Spire.
Aradia collapsed to her knees, clutching her head. "No. No, no—this isn't right. That's not just a breach. It's a memory."
Lyra blinked. "A what?"
Aradia's voice trembled. "A memory of the sky. Something the world forgot. Something older than the Harbinger."
The crack widened.
Caelum whispered, "It remembers me."
Astra stared. "The sky remembers you? What does that even—"
Lyra didn't let her finish.
Because the crack burst open.
Light poured out.
And a voice—not a being, not a monster, but a voice woven from the fabric of the heavens themselves—spoke Caelum's name like it had been waiting centuries to say it.
"CAELUM VALE."
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Caelum—don't—"
Too late.
The starlit wind rushing from the tear struck him like a tidal wave.
He staggered.
The Crown flared.
And the sky's voice whispered with terrible certainty.
"THE TRUE BEARER HAS RETURNED."
The light surged.