Page 202 of A Reign of Chromes & Shadows

And Kern—the stillborn twin—the shadowed seed.

But why. In mourning’s grip…

His mind replayed Nora’s anguish, the raw, primal grief that had torn through her. Rain had felt it in the dream; a grief so powerful it had clawed at his own heart, threatening to split him open.

Could grief alone curse the Aetherchrome?

Could a mother’s despair twist the very magic of the realm?

It seemed impossible… yet the riddle said otherwise.

Still, doubt gnawed at him.

Nora, in his earlier vision, had been gentle. Loving. Concerned. Not a woman who would curse anything, let alone the sacred source of Aether.

The contradiction unsettled him.

There were still pieces missing; pieces the Gods had not yet revealed.

He pushed on, working through the riddle with more insight than he’d ever had before.

“It is she who will be the last of great power.”

Skylar, the last singular monarch.

The last Rainbow ruler.

The last to hold more than one gift.

“For he will ensure.”

Rain frowned.

Kern?

The corpse-child with the thousand-voiced plea?

The mummified face screaming ‘Help me?’

No.

That couldn’t be literal.

The Gods loved their twisted metaphors; their riddles wrapped in illusions.

So, if not Kern… then who?

His stomach tightened.

“Three hundred years of her reign, the Darkness will rise,

Until a worthy sacrifice.”

He remembered Isarion’s recounting of that night; Skylar sacrificing her kingdom, her sons, perhaps even her own life. Rain wondered what had become of the palace. Had they survived on the other side? Or had her life been the sacrifice that sealed the darkness away?

“The vines will be slowed, not stopped, just stalled.”

The shadowed tendrils from his dream flashed behind his eyelids; relentless, hungry, unstoppable.