Beneath the Sky

Dawn did not arrive gently.

It broke across the horizon like a promise forced into existence—warm, unavoidable, and heavy with consequence.

As light crept over Facilís, Loria moved.

Her body no longer hesitated. The countless hours of training, the quiet lessons whispered in shadows, the pain she had endured without complaint—it had all shaped her into something sharper than doubt.

She was no longer running to survive.

She was moving to arrive.

She did not remember the moment she was born.

But the world remembered for her.

“Not a boy, Mr. Kiess. What are we going to do?”

The room had been warm—unnaturally so for an autumn day. Outside, the air shimmered as if the tools of the Upper Ones had stirred again.

“The prophecy is false,” someone whispered. “This child cannot be the—”

“Enough.”

Her father’s voice had cut through the doubt, firm and unyielding.

“This child,” he said, lifting her gently, “will not serve destiny. She will challenge it.”

Her cries echoed against the walls. Her mother wept—exhausted, frightened, but smiling as she held her close.

They named her Loria.

The one whose light shines over.

Some said the warmth that day was unnatural.
Others believed it was her.

She remembered fragments.

A table filled with unfamiliar faces.
Gifts placed carefully, as if meaning weighed more than gold.
A man stepping forward with his son—a boy older by a year, shy, quiet, his gaze unsettling even to the adults in the room.

Their eyes had met.

Something had stirred then.
Not memory.
Not recognition.

Connection.

“This young lady must be a princess,” the man joked.
“Don’t mind my boy—he’s always been quiet.”

The boy said nothing.

But when he placed the gift into her small hands, she felt it.

A white glove. Too large for her fingers. Meant for a future not yet written.

“This has a counterpart,” the man had said softly. “When the time comes—”

Her father had interrupted.

And the rest faded into silence.

Steel rang beneath the earth.

Loria burst forward through the hidden path, her movements precise, her speed deliberate. The glove—now fitted, now earned—caught the light as she struck.

Fozic watched her carefully.

“You’ve changed,” he said, calm despite the chaos around them.

“So have you,” Loria answered, sweeping past him, disarming one soldier, dropping another.

Her ambition burned openly now.
Her intent undisguised.

She did not slow.
She did not listen.

She was not here to explain herself.

She was here to reach him.

Fozic remained still, eyes sharp, unreadable—as if he already knew how this would end.

Far from her battle, silence ruled.

Wrex stood beneath the shadow of the Lions’ Wall, blood darkening his shoulder, breath steady despite the weight pressing down on him.

The world felt empty there.
As if dawn itself had paused to watch.

Behind him stood a familiar figure—an old friend, smiling nervously.

“You really are something else,” the man said. “Care to tell me what your—”

“Time,” Wrex interrupted, his voice low, unwavering, “is not something we fight for.”

He did not turn.

“We do not live for it. We move with it. We witness the beginning of day, the end of night, and the cycle that never stops.”

The man fell silent.

In Wrex’s eyes, dawn reflected—not as hope, but as certainty.

A memory surfaced.

Training drills.
The hum of the TSM vehicle.
Loria standing beside him, adjusting her stance, determined even then.

The room.
The disappearance.
The message about the raid.

And one small detail he had not forgotten.

The glove.

When he had seen it on her hand, something in him had gone still.

As if the final stroke had been added to a painting he had always known would be finished.

Above them all, the sky burned gold.

Three paths moved forward.
Three wills collided.
No truth fully revealed.
No destiny confirmed.

Only motion.

Only dawn.

And beneath that sky, the arc came to its end—not with answers, but with certainty:

The world was no longer waiting.

End of Arc