Dawn broke cold and clear over Mondstadt, the golden cracks in the sky now visible even in daylight—thin, luminous fractures that pulsed like veins of molten sunlight. They had widened overnight, silent witnesses to the growing unease that hung over the city like frost on glass.

  Nicole stood at the nursery window, Boreas balanced on her hip, Elowen clinging to her skirts. The twins were unusually quiet, as though they too sensed the shift in the air. Nicole’s hand rested protectively on Boreas’s blond head; her other arm encircled Elowen’s small shoulders. Her eyes—still shadowed from weeks of strain—burned with unyielding resolve.

  Varka entered without a word, his presence filling the room like a gathering storm. He crossed to them in three strides, knelt, and pressed a kiss first to Elowen’s forehead, then Boreas’s, and finally to Nicole’s knuckles where they gripped the windowsill.

  “They’re coming,” he said simply. Not a question.

  Nicole nodded. “I felt it through Boreas an hour ago. A presence—not Fatui, not Abyss. Higher. Colder. They’re… judging.”

  Before either could say more, the sky outside flared.

  A column of blinding white light descended from one of the golden fractures, touching down soundlessly in the open meadow beyond Windrise. No thunder, no wind—just an oppressive stillness that made every bird fall silent.

  From the light stepped a single figure.

  Tall, robed in seamless gold and ivory, faceless beneath a helm that reflected the sky like a mirror. Wings of pure light flexed once, then folded. The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles—or one of her silent emissaries—had come in person.

  The manor’s wards flared violet and green, crackling like lightning caught in glass. Varka was already moving, claymore summoned to his hand in a rush of Anemo. Nicole set the twins behind her, hands raised; faint starlight gathered at her fingertips, ready to shield or strike.

  The figure did not advance. It simply… waited.

  Its voice arrived not through air but directly in their minds—calm, vast, devoid of warmth.

  Offspring of imbalance. Their existence disrupts the weave. Surrender them for recalibration. Resistance invites erasure.

  Nicole’s laugh was sharp, brittle. “You erased my kind once. You failed to erase me. You will not touch my children.”

  Varka stepped forward, placing himself between his family and the emissary. “Mondstadt is under my protection. These children are under ours. Leave. Or test what happens when a mortal knight meets a god halfway.”

  The emissary tilted its head—a gesture almost curious.

  You defy order. Defiance begets consequence.

  Before it could continue, a new voice cut through the tension like a blade.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Enough.”

  The Traveler appeared at the edge of the meadow—cloak billowing, sword already drawn, eyes blazing with something fiercer than anger. Empathy. Recognition. Memory of their own twin torn away by that same ominous light.

  They strode forward until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Varka and Nicole.

  “You separated me from the only family I had left,” the Traveler said, voice low and lethal. “You will not do the same to them. Touch these children, and I come for your throne. I come for every last principle you hold sacred. I will burn your order to ash if that’s what it takes.”

  The emissary regarded the Traveler for a long, silent moment. Then—without reply—the light column flared once more. The figure dissolved upward, retreating into the fracture as though the confrontation had never occurred.

  The sky dimmed. The cracks narrowed, though they did not vanish entirely.

  For now, the heavens had blinked.

  But the tension lingered.

  That late afternoon, two Fatui carriages rolled to a discreet halt at the city gates. Pantalone stepped out first—elegant coat trimmed in black fox, rings glinting like captured starlight—followed by Pulcinella, shorter, hunched, yet radiating the quiet menace of old political cunning.

  They carried no visible weapons, only sealed letters and a crate of Cryo-imbued gifts. “Observation,” Pantalone announced smoothly to Jean, who met them at the gates flanked by Kaeya and Diluc. “Her Majesty wishes only to… assess the situation.”

  Jean’s smile was ice. “Observation ends at the city walls. Turn around.”

  Before Pantalone could reply, the Traveler leaped forward again—this time flanked by Venti, who strummed a single ominous chord on his lyre.

  The Traveler’s voice carried across the snow. “Tell the Tsaritsa this: if any Harbinger, any agent, any whisper of Snezhnaya comes near those children with intent to claim or control them, I will march north myself. I will tear through your palaces until I stand before her throne. And I will not ask politely.”

  Pantalone’s polite mask slipped for half a heartbeat—surprise, then calculation. Pulcinella merely chuckled, dry and humorless.

  “Bold words,” the Regrator murmured. “But we hear them. Fear not. I will pass your message to Her Majesty.”

  They retreated without protest. The carriages rolled away before dusk.

  Inside the manor that evening, the fire burned high. Boreas and Elowen slept soundly in their cradle, exhausted by the day’s unseen strain. Nicole sat beside it, fingers brushing their cheeks in turn. Varka stood at her shoulder, one hand resting on the nape of her neck—grounding, possessive.

  The Traveler lingered near the hearth, staring into the flames.

  Varka broke the silence first.

  “You’ve stood with us twice now. Not as ally—as family.” He met the Traveler’s gaze steadily. “If you’ll have it… Ha! I shall name you godfather to Boreas and Elowen. Not in title alone. In truth. Should anything happen to us, they’ll have you. And you’ll have them.”

  The Traveler blinked—surprised, then deeply moved. They glanced at the sleeping twins, something soft and aching crossing their features.

  “I… accept,” with an aching smile, he said quietly. “I know what it is to lose half of yourself. I won’t let it happen to them.” “Yeah! Paimon will be their godmother too!” Everyone chuckled in Paimon’s declaration.

  Nicole rose, crossed to the Traveler, and embraced them briefly—fierce, grateful. “Thank you. For seeing them not as threats… but as children.”

  The Traveler nodded, throat tight. “They remind me there’s still something worth protecting.”

  Outside, the wind picked up—clean, cold, carrying the scent of pine and distant freedom. The golden cracks in the sky had dimmed to faint scars. No emissaries descended. No Fatui cloaks shadowed the gates.

  For now, the danger had receded.

  Varka pulled Nicole back into his arms as the Traveler and Paimon took their leave, promising to return soon. He pressed his lips to her temple.

  “They backed down,” he murmured. “Both of them. That doesn’t mean they’re gone. But it means we bought time.”

  Nicole turned in his hold, rising on her toes to kiss him—slow, certain. “Then we use it. We teach them. We love them. We stand ready.”

  He smiled against her mouth—fierce, tender, unbreakable.

  “Always.”

  In the quiet manor, beneath a sky that still watched but no longer pressed, a family forged in defiance held fast.

  The storm had paused.

  But they had not forgotten how to dance in it.