Rain stood frozen beneath the plum tree, the branches gently swaying above him, scattering pale petals around his feet like silent witnesses to his awakening.
That look in Catharine's eyes as she faded… it was haunting, not with fear, but with recognition, like someone seeing a long-lost truth in him.
And then it struck.
"Mother…"
The word fell from his lips like a whisper from the past, and the breath caught in his throat.
That scent… that softness… that warmth. Catharine hadn't just reminded him of someone, she was the echo of the one person whose love had once wrapped around his soul like sunlight.
Images, long buried under chains and scars, rushed into him like spring floods. Tiny hands wrapped around a finger. A lullaby hummed in twilight. Golden hair cascading like rivers of light. Sapphire eyes filled with radiant sorrow and radiant hope. A woman...his mother, holding him to her chest, whispering promises the world never let her keep.
He saw her golden kimono and the sun's crest in her hair ornaments, the beauty of her smile as she played with him. The sparkle of a mother's joy in her deep colorful eyes, the texture of her garments as she nursed him...most importantly the flow of her Uud as she lulled him to sleep.
"I wasn't born a slave," Rain breathed, his voice trembling. "I too… was once loved."
And then it happened.
Beneath the plum's forgiving shade, He wept for love long veiled and lost, Then dawn's first warmth through petals played, An ancient sun upon him crossed.
Not mere light, but mother's grace, A silent tide of golden Uud, Her hidden hand in that bright place Anointed him with gift and blood.
And in that glow his power stirred, Not born of rage, nor forged by strife But touched by one whose voice unheard Sang life and love into his life.
A tear slipped down his cheek, just one but it carried within it the weight of years of silence, of longing, of the ache to be held and told he mattered.
The tear struck the ground, and the sun broke through the clouds, bathing Rain in a white-gold brilliance as if an authority of divine nature embraced him.
And amidst that divine warmth, a new sensation bloomed.
Black shimmered around his skin, not as darkness, but as potential, as weightless power, swirling gently in motes and threads, tethered to his very spirit. It didn't hum or roar like other Authorities....it sang a brilliant shine. A soundless hymn of memory and mercy.
Rain's Authority had awakened.
Not born from wrath. Not forged from vengeance. Not summoned by ambition.
But born of love.
Love reclaimed. Love remembered.
From the shadows behind the grove, Catharine watched. Her breath caught. Her body shimmered in Lumin flickers but this time, not from fear. Her heart pounded in awe.
"So beautiful..." she thought. He's not like the others.
His Authority was not a crown to be worn. It was a song. A promise. A return.
"Love…" she whispered. "It's real after all."
And in that moment, Rain stopped being a shadow in the Royal Class.
He became its unspoken heartbeat.
A flame born not to burn but to warm.