The silence after divinity is the heaviest kind.
The armies of Heaven had stilled. The skies—torn, stitched, and glowing—remained quiet. The world itself held its breath. Even Time, it seemed, waited.
Talia floated in the air, wings dimmed but spread wide, her form humming with the calm resonance of unshakable presence. Her body was no longer burning with power, but carrying it—effortlessly, like a second skin.
And in her arms, the child stirred.
He blinked once.
Not out of confusion—but selection.
His eyes were not mirrors, nor stars, nor flames. They were empty pages—waiting to be written by what they saw.
He looked first at Lucien, then at Kaelira who knelt nearby, then at the sky—still scorched from the Tribunal's failed judgment.
And finally, he looked into Talia's eyes.
She whispered, "I'm here."
Her voice trembled for the first time in many chapters.
He reached out—not with fingers, but with meaning.
And he spoke.
Not a sound, not a cry.
But a word that settled.
It had no translation.
It had no origin.
It was an emotion, a principle, a naming.
Talia gasped.
Because she understood it.
It meant: Mother.
But more than that.
It meant: Anchor, Refuge, Law, First, Forever.
The wind bowed.
The stones softened.
Even the stars seemed to lean closer.
Lucien whispered, "He chose you first."
Talia wept.
Not in pain.
Not in fear.
But in completion.
The child closed his eyes.
But now the world knew: he was awake.
And his first word was not prophecy, not war, not command.
It was belonging.
And for the first time since the stars were born, the divine hierarchy shook not from terror—but from humility.