The peace lasted four days.
Four days of training in the yard, of meals eaten together, of Lumi showing Elara how to grow things in the garden. Four days of Sera watching her sister wake up — slowly, cautiously, like a flower turning toward light it had forgotten existed.
Elara's power was growing faster than Sera expected.
The gold at her fingertips came more easily now. She could hold it for ten seconds, then twenty, then a full minute. Her control was raw — the light flickered and surged like a candle in a storm — but it was there. Real. Hers.
"You're a natural," Sera told her.
"I don't feel natural." Elara stared at her hands. "I feel like there's something inside me that's been waiting my whole life to get out."
"Because there is."
---
On the fifth day, the reports started com
