The moonwell shimmered behind them—quiet, ancient, patient.
“Let’s finish this,” Poppy whispered.
Mingxi nodded once, and together, glowing and determined, they stepped into the night to prepare for the ritual that would bring her sister home. The clearing was quiet except for the soft hum still lingering in Poppy’s bones—an echo of the moonwell’s heartbeat that hadn’t faded when she left the water.
She felt… different. Not overwhelmed. Not drowning in magic. Present. Grounded. Alive in a way she’d never felt before. Like every inch of her skin had been folded into a new shape and her magic finally understood where it belonged. Mingxi stood a few paces away, watching her with a tension that wasn’t fear but reverence sharpened by worry.
“Try something small,” he said gently. “A trickle. A spark. A thread of moonlight.”
Poppy took a breath.
The moon heard her. Her magic rose instantly, not surging but responding—curious, attentive, obedient. Moonlight curled through her veins. She lifted one hand. A faint shimmer bloomed between her fingers. A perfect sphere of soft silver formed in her palm, floating above her skin like a miniature moon.
Mingxi exhaled.
That alone would have been enough, but Poppy wasn’t done. She rolled her wrist, just slightly. The orb spun, elongated, and then unfurled into a ribbon of light that curled up her arm like a living serpent.
She smiled.
“How… how does it feel?” Mingxi asked softly.
“Like breathing,” she said. “Like I’ve had a voice all my life but only learned the language tonight.”
She lifted both hands this time.
Moonlight gathered instantly, like the entire clearing inhaled in anticipation. She shaped it without thought: a long arc of shimmering silver, woven strands of light, a sphere within a sphere, delicate threads forming fractal patterns like frost on glass.
The designs mirrored the sigils carved into the moonwell stones. Ancient. Sacred. Fluid. Her glowing constructs hovered in the air around her, orbiting like moons around a planet.
Mingxi took a sharp breath. “Poppy… you are channeling without a focal point. Without a spell. That is pure lunar resonance.”
“I just know now, I know how.”
She raised her right hand. The ribbons lifted. She raised her left. They obeyed. Poppy turned her palms downward. The moonlight swirled into a spiral, condensing into a narrow beam that carved a line into the moss—not destructive, but precise, clean, a stroke of perfect moonlit ink.
She flicked her fingers.
The beam widened into a broad arc, slicing cleanly through a fallen branch twenty feet away. It parted without sound, each half falling onto the moss with a muted whisper.
Poppy froze.
Mingxi’s ears tilted forward in shock.
“Did I… did I just…?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “You cut it. Without touching it.”
Poppy’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even mean to! I was just experimenting!”
Mingxi stepped forward, voice low and awed. “You are… dangerous.”
She blinked at him. “Is that a compliment?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “And a warning. Do not test the edges of your power too quickly.”
“Why not?”
He stepped into her orbit of light and said, “Because you will do something extraordinary without meaning to.”
