Heron spoke as if it were only natural, her eyes bright with joy and gentleness, like sunrise spilling over a quiet bay. Even Aphelia couldn’t spot a flaw, like polished jade with no seam. It startled her, a small bird shaken from a branch. That kindness and joy didn’t feel performed, more like wildflowers opening after rain.

But when someone calls herself your mother out of a clear sky, who believes it?

Aphelia knew her birth as a manufactured stand‑in, a shadow cast so Sigdrifa could perfectly fuse Brynhildr’s power. Lena, who once took her in, held the truth behind closed doors, like a house with sealed windows.

And Heron—a mature woman she’d met only minutes ago—did share a thread of resemblance with her, a mirror on rippled water. But to claim blood from that faint likeness felt absurd, like building a bridge from thin mist.

Worse, Heron was a fragment torn from that twisted existence, a splinter of storm and night. How was Aphelia supposed to trust her? Sigdrifa could forge people as easily as frost forms on glass; how much more could that higher, twisted being?

“Wait, Miss Heron, please don’t make a joke this cruel.”

Aphelia lifted a hand to cut the air, trying to slice the jest like reeds by a river.

Heron shook her head, solemn as a temple bell, and kept walking with Aphelia at a slow drift. Her words fell like leaves as they moved. “I know it’s hard to accept. We’re meeting at the wrong time and the wrong place, two crossed tides. We should have met farther down the river of days; by then you’d have understood, and I wouldn’t need to explain.”

Faint sorrow watered Heron’s gaze, soft eyes like windows looking through time’s veil. Aphelia felt the emotion rise in her own chest like mist in a valley, and with that warmth her confusion thickened like fog.

She was someone who walked through time, a traveler who’d proven you could step across the river and ripple history. If they were meant to meet in the future, then this meeting dropped like a stone today—what circles would it send across the stream?

She didn’t dare chase the thought. What happened in Asgard had burned enough warning into her, a scar under the skin.

“Then if this is the wrong tide and shore, why meet me at all? That twisted existence could send anyone as a messenger. Why you, Heron… Miss?”

They walked on until the giant ruin loomed like a mountain of bones. Only then did Heron answer, her voice a breeze through reeds. “Heaven knows. Maybe there’s some other intent. But for now, I have to show you what you’re meant to see.”

She stepped forward, and sky‑blue light unfurled from her body like a tide. Aphelia felt the buried ruins shiver at that first gleam, like bones waking under sand.

Instinct kicked; she moved to summon the Crimson Fire. Heron’s hand closed over hers, warm silk over flame, and her touch told Aphelia to rest easy.

Two intricate, interlocked Runes flared on Heron’s temples, fine as frost patterns. She let go, rose into the air like a drifting leaf, and a strange light crossed her eyes. Her voice shed its warmth and turned to steel and ice.

“Planetary Recurrence Sustainment System, activate.”

“Codename: A9.”

“Survivors: One.”

“Authority: Highest clearance, planetary governor verification.”

As Heron spoke, the sand‑drowned city began to glow, one spark then another, like stars pricking dusk. Everywhere Aphelia could see, buildings that should have been dead lit with blue fire.

And the change wasn’t only that.

A black monolith stood alone in the sand, a solitary fang of night. It answered Heron’s words, drawing blue streams from every ruin like rivers to the sea. The wind‑scoured, dark‑red sky flared with radiant blue, lightning without thunder.

Aphelia couldn’t help it—she kindled a thread of Crimson Fire, a red petal opening in her palm. She looked up at the blue lights racing overhead, weaving into a vast vortex above the monolith, a whirl that tugged at the soul like a siren tide. In that roarless rush, she thought she heard something.

Could these blue lights be—

A wild guess bloomed in her chest like a sudden flower. Watching Heron drift, she stepped back to spare Heron’s soul from her flame. The Crimson Fire surged and wrapped her hand, a glove of embers.

The instant it burned, her inner sea erupted. A swarm of consciousness streaked through her mindscape, numberless as migrating stars. No malice, no kindness—just passersby with fierce obsessions, leaves carried by a hard wind. Without the Crimson Fire’s glow, she wouldn’t have sensed the blue light’s strange current at all.

Aphelia’s black eyes widened, doubt pooling like ink. Those blue lights in the ruins were souls, each no weaker than a Demigod, lanterns bright as noon. She clenched her jaw, biting down on a thorn. They meant no harm, yet with the Crimson Fire alight, she could only weather the impact like a cliff taking waves.

Heron noticed and spoke again, a command that cut clean as a blade. The blue light curved around Aphelia like water skirting a stone, swift and precise.

The pressure dropped away like a storm leaving the valley. Aphelia snuffed the Crimson Fire at once; she didn’t want that feeling again—countless obsessions crossing her mind like knives on silk.

As the sky’s blue light thinned, the monolith’s carvings brightened like embers waking. An ethereal voice whispered at their ears, a shell singing with the sea.

“Authorization confirmed. Planetary Governor: Lady Heron. Welcome.”

In the next breath, the world changed its skin.

Light lanced from the monolith and speared the clouds. The dark‑red firmament ignited; smog‑thick haze broke like winter ice. A transparent barrier unfurled around the city and pushed outward like a slow, relentless tide.

The harsh sandstorm died; green shoots spread like a fresh carpet. Parched earth softened into rich fields, furrows ready and dark. Crops stood near harvest, as if their roots had slept there all along. Ruins rose and straightened into towers, lines clean as cut stone.

Sand turned to neat brick; ruin became metropolis. The whole world felt reborn, a phoenix lifting from ash.

Heron drifted down, a tailored blue robe settling on her like calm water. Her loose black hair gathered into a ponytail under a faint blue band, crisp and capable as a drawn bow. She smiled at Aphelia and spoke softly, a warm lamp in dusk.

“Welcome to the Ancient Civilization, my daughter.”

Minutes later, walking through a city trimmed like a garden, Aphelia felt an illusion settle like spring rain. Peace rested on everything, familiar as morning tea. The city held all a city should, and more—things she couldn’t even name, cool metal birds and singing glass.

Every face wore a gentle smile, dawn on the lips. A moment ago, sand had buried this place; where did these people come from, seeds sprouting after fire? She didn’t know, but life pulsed in them like sap in spring.

This world seemed full of small wonders, little bells ringing in the grass.

They stopped at a bench to rest. Heron asked her to wait and slipped into a nearby shop, a swallow through a door. Aphelia leaned back and stared at the blue sky, testing it like a mirror for cracks. Even the Crimson Fire chimed within her—it’s real, clear as a struck bell.

“Aphelia, here, try this.”

Heron came back and offered an object with a conical top, a small mountain of color. Seeing Heron eat with sunny delight, Aphelia bit the bright layer, and cold spiked through her like winter wind.

“Hiss—Miss Heron, what is this? Ice?”

Cold, yes, but delicious—a taste like sweet snow. In her era, nothing like this existed, the recipe locked behind winter and want.

Heron watched her surprise with playful pride, a cat that caught a ribbon. She laughed. “This is ice cream. Your era didn’t have it—conditions held it back.”

“Miss Heron, thank you for the treat…”

When the chill eased, Aphelia smiled, a bent willow in a light breeze. “But you should tell me where we are, right?”

Heron smiled openly and didn’t dodge, her answer clean as a stream. “As I said, this is the Ancient Civilization. More precisely, it’s the last ember that civilization left behind—a world prepared so humanity could cling to life like fire sheltered in cupped hands. Well, my daughter, does that answer sit right with you?”

She spoke like a mother, shaping even answers for the child’s sake, but without a mother’s long practice; it was like asking the moon if the tide approved.

“Tell me more, Miss Heron. I want it clearer. If you’re a remnant of the Ancient Civilization, then how did all this rise today? What is that black monolith? And…”

And why are you inside that twisted existence.

She didn’t ask it. Heron’s mood brushed her like a wet wind, and sour caution knotted her throat.

Heron seemed to read her heart. She set down the ice cream and ruffled Aphelia’s hair, a warm breeze through dark leaves. “These questions wind along a long road. Still, you’re my daughter—of course you should be as willful with me as you like. In this world, I have no kin but you.”