NOVEL NEXT Chapter 30: Skywake
A few hours after Winston vanished beyond the shadows…
Morning light skimmed the ruins, tinting the frost a pale gold. From the edge of a fractured courtyard, Adele surveyed Charlevoix's hushed debris. Her hair caught a stray breeze, cloak trailing her ankles like a dark banner. Albion watched her stand among broken stones, the crisp air tense with waiting.
She beckoned him forward. "Close your eyes," she said, softly but without question.
He did. The cold bit his skin, and he tried to still the restless pulse in his veins. Then her fingertips brushed his brow, light as a whisper.
The world ripped open.
Not in violence—more like dawn flooding a hidden valley. Albion's senses stretched. He felt magic breathe from fissured cobblestone, glimpsed its shimmer in the half-burned beams and the snow-laden rooftops. What had seemed dead was instead thrumming with subtle, pulsing life.
He gasped, eyes flying open. The courtyard glowed in veins of dancing current, each filament weaving overhead like a tapestry of living threads. Beneath his feet, root-threads of energy dove deep into the frost-laced earth, swirling with memory and grief.
"Oh…" He had no words.
Adele exhaled, and for an instant, all of it brightened—a heartbeat of radiant power. The battered towers and gutted arches flared with color. He turned to face her and nearly lost his balance.
She stood wreathed in swirling bands of light, her silhouette the anchor of the entire web. Runes flickered under her collar, across her wrists—brilliant scars of old magic. Her gaze was calm, fierce, and almost sorrowful. A slight tremor ran along her arms, the first sign of strain creeping in.
"In Avalon," she said, voice resonating in every chord of the web, "I was the land's favored daughter. Here, I'm just its faded echo. Ten years outside our borders, then three more locked in a cell sealed away from every ley line… My magic forgot how to sing. But this place—" She lifted her chin at Charlevoix's ruin. "It still remembers me."
She raised her hands toward the sky.
Wind howled around them. A rush of power rippled across broken columns and ragged walls. Snow froze midair, each flake suspended like a galaxy of tiny stars. Charlevoix groaned under the pressure of shifting magic. Stone shuddered; timbers creaked; vines burst from the earth in curling ribbons of green
As she guided the vines to mend a fractured wall, her fingers twitched; the faint tremor grew. A quiver that spoke of her body's protest. Still, she pressed on, luminous with an ancient authority. Albion stumbled back, heart pounding at the raw scale of it—like standing in the presence of a god whose domain was earth and sky. On the walls, the vines rustled with a sound like soft applause, tiny leaves rubbing against battered stone.
"It feels like the sky itself has woken from mourning," Albion whispered, awe creeping into his voice.
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"Bloom with me," Adele murmured, so quiet that only his newly awakened senses caught the words. "Charlevoix… rise."
And the ruins did. Walls righted themselves. Burned fields sprouted fresh grass. Choked wells brimmed with crystalline water. Dark scorch marks faded to reveal stone still battered but alive. The ash-laden wind took on a cleansing warmth that melted the shallow drifts.
Albion's pulse thundered in his ears. He turned in a slow circle, watching vines stitch a fractured tower back together. Then he glimpsed flickering silhouettes overhead, like echoes of the city that once was—past battles, joys, hopes—countless memories swirling in bright illusions. The air thickened with layered time, as though each moment was stacked upon the next. The truth of Charlevoix unveiled itself in raw color and breath.
Adele lowered her arms. Sweat gleamed on her brow, her limbs shaking. The illusions swirled away, settling back into the half-rebuilt city. The hush returned, leaving only the rustle of renewed vines and the soft trickle of flowing water.
She sagged forward, breath hitching. Albion stepped in to brace her, sliding an arm around her waist. Beneath her cloak, he felt the tremor running through her body—small spasms that spoke of exhaustion, maybe pain. She leaned into him, her cheek cold against his collar.
"I can't mend everything," she said, voice unsteady. "Not anymore. Not yet. This much will cost me days of recovery… maybe more." She winced. "It felt like the spell carved something out of me—not just energy, but time, memory… maybe years."
He held her, heart pounding so hard it ached. "How can you call this 'weak'?"
A faint, bittersweet smile crossed her lips. "I once moved mountains by whispering, Albion. Now, healing a single city like this…" Her voice trailed off, burdened by a quiet sorrow that hinted at an even greater toll on her life. "But for now, it's enough. We heal what we can. The world needs that more than it needs fire."
"Why do this?" Albion looked concerned.
"I didn't warn you in time," she relented, "so much avoidable death, meaningless suffering."
He swallowed, struck by the enormity of the power in her trembling frame. "I— I don't know what to say."
She rested her palm on his chest, drawing in a shaky breath to steady herself. "Open your eyes a little wider each day," she repeated softly, "and never assume you've reached the limit. This world is deeper than we know." She gave him a final, resolute look. "We'll pay the toll together."
They turned to leave the courtyard. Behind them, broken towers now stood half-healed, vines draping the renewed walls with soft green. The ground, once a mass grave of memories, glowed faintly beneath the new snow—a promise of rebirth and the cost it demanded.
Before they crossed the threshold, Albion paused, looking back at the city that had stirred from its misery. He could feel the land's battered spirit—a wounded giant slowly waking. A faint echo of Adele's magic pulsed in the stones. Through his heightened senses, it murmured thanks.
"Adele," he said quietly. "What next?"
She slipped her arm through his, steadying her weight against him. Her gaze turned west, where distant mountains stretched beneath a pale sun. "We learn. We grow. And we find the strength to face what's coming."
A hush enveloped them. Snow began to drift again, gentle flakes dancing through the softened air. Albion's breath formed small clouds, each one shining with traces of lingering magic.
He glanced down to find her fingers woven in his. The warmth of her grip grounded him—a tactile reminder that, though power could reshape a city, it might also steal life from the caster. The taste of triumph on the air held a trace of caution. Even so, determination gleamed in his newly opened eyes.
They stepped into the snowfall and vanished from Charlevoix's awakened heart—two figures forging onward, guided by the Bloom's quiet hum and the memory of what their combined will could accomplish.
Above them, the swirling clouds parted, opening a road of pale indigo. For a single moment, Charlevoix stood in silent wonder, neither what it had been nor what it would become, but poised on the edge of rebirth—lit by the hush of a sky that had, for one breath, witnessed something close to the divine.