Unseen Faith.

[When was the last time I saw Miguel this tense and desperate?]

[When was it?]  The thought lingered, unsettling and a little familiar.

Oh... right, she thought, the memory surfacing like a shadow from the past. I remember now.

At the same time,

As she is getting immersed in her thoughts and memories, both of them enters the room. On entering the chamber, a gust of power surged all around their body-Startling them a bit. But it doesn't let their focus go by. Their eyes met. No words. Just a nod—calm, certain, ready.

Miguel took a breath, his expression sharpening with quiet resolve.

"Let's get started then," he said, voice low but steady. "Time is limited...." 

Miguel's eyes swept across the chamber, sharp and calculating despite the pressure in the air. He was searching—measuring—every corner of the room, until his gaze landed on the space near the large bay window.

"There," he pointed. "We'll set up the trial there. Help me clear it, quickly."

Without hesitation, they rushed toward the spot. In their hurry, coordination faltered. Rose stumbled slightly, her shoulder brushing hard against Miguel's arm, while he lost balance and bumped into a set of small, delicate artifacts, causing one to fall on the floor.

Their movements are fast, but their bodies betray them—tension coiled beneath every breath, every motion. Anxious. Focused. Determined. The weight of what they were about to do pressing invisibly down on them.

"We are getting quite worked up..." he chuckled looking at her, trying to ease the situation.

[There it is again, the same expression.]

Hearing it made her go back in her memory lane again.

[It was then.]

[It was nine years ago... the war that changed everything.

The War of the Five Great Clans didn't just scar the land—it shattered the very ecosystem of the Empire. Cities burned, skies dimmed, and half the kingdom's population was lost in the chaos. But what truly changed—what no one ever saw—were them.

Miguel and the Emperor returned alive… but different.

They never spoke of it. Never showed what truly happened during the final days of that war. But I saw it in them—especially in Miguel. The silence. The weight in his eyes. He was haunted, withdrawn, and when I asked, he would always deflect. Gentle, but firm. Practiced.

So I stopped asking.

Until one night… he came to my chamber. No warning. No guards. Just Miguel—at the door, late into the night, looking like a man on the edge of something irreversible.

That's when I knew.

I asked again. And this time, something I said—though I can't recall what—broke him. He told me everything.

The truth of the war. The decisions they had to make. The sacrifices no one else would ever know.

And most of all… the promise he made to the Emperor.

After that night, he asked me to help him keep it.

I agreed. Without hesitation.

For years, we worked—relentlessly, through failure after failure—chasing a future only the two of us believed in.

And now, nine years later… all of it has finally come to this.]

Coming back from her memories, she looks at the queen, 

[ But then that happened....]

While she was in her inner monologue.

Meanwhile, Miguel starts preparing for the trial to execute. After cleaning up the a portion of the room.

Miguel reaches into his coat and pulls out a small velvet pouch—worn, marked with ancient runes barely visible in the low light. Inside is a fine, silver-blue powder known as Magic Mist—a rare alchemical substance used in high-level mana alignment rituals. Its texture shimmers like ground starlight, soft and cold to the touch.

He takes a measured fistful of it, his movements calm and practiced.

Kneeling beside the setup, he begins to trace the spell formation directly onto the floor. First, a star—sharp lines drawn in one fluid motion, each point deliberate, each stroke backed by years of precision. As he completes the star, he moves on to form nine distinct circles, carefully positioning them around the star's perimeter.

Each circle represents a core principle of mana flow—origin, motion, expansion, resistance, flow, division, memory, branching and balance. With practiced ease, Miguel connects each circle to the boundary of the central star using thin, shimmering lines of Magic Mist. They look like threads of moonlight being stitched into place.

The moment the last connection is made, the powder begins to react, glowing faintly, as if acknowledging the completion of the pattern. A gentle hum vibrates through the air—subtle, yet undeniably alive.

Miguel leans back, dusting his hands off slowly. His eyes scan the formation, every line and curve exactly where it needs to be.

"It's ready," he says quietly.

Finishing the setup, he calls out,

" Rose....Rose...."

But she doesn't respond. As her mind drifted away in her thoughts. On noticing it, He get up, grabbed her wrist gently. Breaking her out of it.

"Don't turn back to your thoughts...I need you here...with me" he says quietly, in a soft tone.

"Oh...yes...right." With a little shock in her face, she nods and comes back to her senses.

[She always does this whenever she is in difficult or tensed situation]

Passing a smile to her, the moment gets interrupted by a voice.

"You are quite late Miguel..." On hearing a pale female voice, they both immediately turn their head to the left and see the Queen all talking and sitting on her back over the bed.

The expression on Miguel's face suddenly changes or rather it comes as a shock to him.

Because he never expected her to wake up this early after draining a lot of flow from her core.

He quickly washed that expression from his face and says in a calm distorted speech," Well my apologies sister, you are aware that it takes a lot of time to move around the wings."

"While I was giving birth I heard Kumara say that you are going to come but I had a feeling that it wasn't...*cough...to comfort me from the pain. So What's going on brother..."

He paused before answering, the words hesitating on his tongue.

Instead of meeting her eyes, he averted his gaze—his jaw tightening ever so slightly, and his brows furrowing with a shadow of doubt. There was disappointment there too—perhaps in himself...or in the situation that had brought them to this point.

The expression on his face confirms her doubt. Clenching her weak fist, she hesitantly asks,

" Wasn't the effect of ritual supposed to happen in the early mon...months...? But after seven months you sounded so confident while you told me that you did something impossible that had never ha...happened before...and that I shouldn't be worried about the consequences now..."

Paused.

"Was that all a lie...brother...?"

 After hearing those words Miguel walks towards the bed and sits next to her. holds her hand right under his palms.

*Kiss

Gives her a brotherly pout on her crossed fingers and says, " There's nothing you have to worry about...We don't know that yet...?"

" What do you mean by, 'you don't know yet'? "

A silence follows the words as there is a reply from Miguel. Which leads to immediate realization.

"Don't tell that my child won't...ha...have..." says in a disbelief and stuttering voice.

Immediately following her doubt he clarifies it by saying it in a high pitch, " Y....Yes that's correct Alice..."

Biting his teeth against each other, he continues, " But it is only going to happen when the trial I perform fails...And I haven't even performed it yet...So there is a possibility that he has it..."

" If he doesn't have it then, what was the point of doing the ritual?" Alice says it rashly as she isn't in her complete state of her mind.

"Come to your senses Alice, you would have been dead if not for ritual..." he contradicts her statement.

"But...still...If he didn't inherit the power then what would be the point for all of this..."

" There is a way…."

Hesitant in his words, he continues.

"I have come with a spell...which will Mimic the Power of the Fruit...But it is a dangerous one. As I have come with it in a short period of time."

"What are the dangers?" she asked with fear in her voice.

"There are some but I don't want you to think about it. Just have faith in me. I will not let anything happen to your baby-That much i can promise you." Desperation in his voice.

 Hesitantly she accepted it. Maybe, it is her love for him that she accepts without any further interrogation.

After getting her permission he immediately gets up with a determination in his mind. Asks Rose to stay with Alice. With her quick steps she reaches the Queen, "It's gonna be okay Alice, you know your brother how talented he is...Just have faith in him." With comforting words Rose brushed her soft hands on her shoulders.

For the first time after entering the room, Miguel has on him.

"Oh boy!... Aren't you a cute one," Miguel whispered, a rare softness in his voice as he looked down at the newborn nestled in the blankets. "Having a good night's sleep, are you? "He smiled faintly. "I'll make sure that sleep doesn't get interrupted."

Gently, almost reverently, he slips his arms beneath the infant's tiny back and shoulders, lifting him slowly into his embrace—carefully not disturbing fragile sleep.

Miguel walks slowly toward the setup, each step deliberate and steady. The weight in his arms is small, delicate—but carries more meaning than anything he's held before.

He kneels and carefully rests the baby at the center of the formation, cradling the child for a lingering moment before letting go.

It's only then that Alice and Rose truly look at the infant for the first time—Offering a faint smile. "Your son has quite the depiction of you, it seems."

Alice's gaze lingers again on the child before she finally speaks—her voice quiet, emotionless.

"If you say so…"

No warmth. No pride. Just words, carried on a breath.

[Maybe it's because of her weakness…]

Rose thinks, watching the Queen's pale, drained expression.

[Or maybe… it's something else]

The doubt started to linger on her mind.

Meanwhile,

[ Lets start the trial] 

He takes out the serum and opens the knob with care.

Tilting the tube gently, he allows a few drops to fall onto the newborn's navel. The liquid is immediately absorbed, vanishing beneath the skin like water into parched earth. Within seconds, glowing threads began to emerge—mana pathways—branching outward from the boy's core like a living constellation.

Then, the Mist of Nine Circles began to shimmer, its golden glow blooming like a sunrise across the chamber. The central star flared first, and from it, radiant lines connected to it, reaching slowly—deliberately—toward the boy's core. One by one, all nine circles linked to him, forming a complete connection.

Whoosh.

Another set of intricate patterns suddenly spiraled into existence, overlapping the boy's original flow. They burn brighter, more complex—alien. Miguel, fully immerse in the task, is deaf to the rush of mana in the air.

But the moment his eyes traced those lines—his breath caught.

Sweat rolled down his temple. For the first time in years, his mind—sharp, trained, enhanced—stopped.

Frozen.

He couldn't read the pattern.

His thoughts swirled in confusion.

[What's going on…? In my entire life, I've seen countless patterns—but never anything like this... What the hell are these...?]

He turned his neck slowly, intending to call out to Rose—to share this revelation.

But her voice never came. So, He turned in her direction to tell her about it.

There, across the room, Rose lay crumpled on the floor—still, unmoving. And standing above her, blade in hand, was his sister... Her Majesty, the Queen—Alice. The sword trembling in her grasp, its edge dripping with fresh blood.

Miguel's legs become numb. The ground beneath him feels distant. He can't move. Can't breathe.

Can't comprehend what has just happened… while he has been lost in the patterns.