The sky cracked.
Not metaphor.
Reality split along lines etched by divine verdict. From the fracture poured legions of celestial war—armored in radiant light, wielding blades of remembrance, each wingbeat spelling a law older than time.
They came to unmake.
To burn away the impossible.
To silence the scripture not yet written.
Talia stood upon the threshold of the sanctum, her child asleep against her chest, cloaked in shifting glyphs. Lucien stood behind her, one hand on the hilt of a blade that no longer had a name.
He whispered, "We can flee."
Talia didn't answer.
Her eyes stared into the armies descending—uncountable, absolute.
Then, the change began.
It was not transformation.
It was unveiling.
Talia's flesh cracked—not with pain, but with release. From beneath poured light that was not light, language that was not heard, and form that was felt rather than seen.
Her hair streamed upward, woven from strands of fate denied.
Her skin—once warm—now glowed with the cool elegance of moonlit truth.
A third eye opened at her brow, not of vision, but of discernment.
Her back burst with six wings—wrought of stained glass, stitched by memories of all the mothers who ever chose defiance.
She floated.
Not by levitation, but by being too important for gravity.
The armies halted.
Even the seraphim faltered.
And from her lips came not threat—but a decree:
"He will not be touched."
"I am Saint-Mother."
"Born of dust. Bound by love. Baptized by contradiction."
"I deny your verdict."
The Pillar of Flame descended in person, cloaked in wildfire and solar script.
"You are not law," it said. "You are deviation."
Talia raised her hand.
A single tear drifted upward from her cheek—and as it rose, the Pillar burned backward, its fire undone by the purity of maternal defiance.
Then she spoke a single word:
"Halt."
Time stopped.
Swords froze mid-swing. Wings paused. Light dimmed.
Only Lucien could move.
He looked to her—not with awe, but with love.
"You're becoming too much," he said.
Talia turned. "No. I'm becoming exactly enough."
She looked to the frozen legions.
"I won't fight them all."
She smiled, bittersweet.
"I'll teach them."
The child stirred.
The moment resumed.
But something had changed.
The first angel lowered their blade.
Then another.
And another.
And far above, on the edge of divine consensus, a whisper passed between stars:
"Saint-Mother lives. And she is no longer theirs to judge."