MasukVALENTINA
I stared at the bracelet without blinking even for a second. It's strange and shocking.
Once Kira uttered those words, it clicked some parts of my memories…
‘Wow, mama, this is so beautiful!’ I exclaimed with shining eyes, watching the beautiful red and white petals in awe.
‘I have never seen it before; did you buy it recently?’
The soft chuckle of Luna echoed in my ears like a melodious cello. My mother, she's so divinely beautiful.
Pulling me closer to her, she tied my hair into a tight bun and pecked my forehead, then carefully traced the glowing petals on her wrist.
A soothing smile spread across her face, ‘No, baby, this is not new; in fact, it's fourteen years old.’ She gazed at it so lovingly that I felt jealous of it.
I glanced at it with a side eye once and frowned a little. ‘But it looks brand new, Mama. Are you sure you're not mistaken?’
She gigg
CHAPTER 53…ANDRESThe chamber felt impossibly vast, even as the ceiling arched overhead in perfect symmetry. The stone beneath my feet hummed faintly— not with magic alone, but with tension. Every delegate of the Concord sat rigidly, their veils and robes marking authority that no longer carried weight.Valentina stood at the center, Luciano in her arms, but she did not appear small. She was the axis, the calm storm, the anchor. Her gaze swept over the room, assessing, daring them to overstep.I did not need to see her face to know her words carried conviction; the air itself listened.“Balance,” she began, and the word rolled through the chamber like a drumbeat. “It is not determined by councils, nor by debate, nor by the accumulation of decrees. It is determined by presence. By the choice to maintain stability in the face of pressure. By acknowledgment of the Anchor.”A ripple passed through the delegates. Some tr
CHAPTER 52…VALENTINAThe chamber did not calm all at once.It never did.Stability, I had learned, did not arrive like silence after a storm. It arrived like breath returning to lungs that had forgotten how to draw air— uneven at first, fragile, earned one moment at a time.Luciano was still crying when the tremors finally eased.Not the sharp cry of pain, but something closer to frustration. Discomfort. A protest against being pulled in too many directions at once.I held him tightly against my chest, rocking him without thinking, my palm pressed flat between his shoulders. His silver flickered in broken pulses now, no longer wild, but not yet settled. It felt like a question still being asked.I lifted my head slowly and looked around the Origin Seat.The Concord stood fractured…Not physically— though the glowing fault line in the stone was impossible to ignore— but ideologically. Their perfect cir
CHAPTER 51…ANDRESThe moment the Origin Seat shuddered beneath our feet, I knew restraint had failed someone long before it failed us.The backlash rolled through the chamber like a living thing— as though a violent correction. Ancient magic recoiling against abuse. The kind of force that did not care who believed themselves powerful, only who belonged.I moved without thinking.I was already in front of Valentina before the tremor finished traveling through the stone, my arm braced across her and Luciano both, my stance wide, grounded, every instinct screaming to shield even though I knew— deeply, bitterly, that whatever came next might not be something I could block.Valentina did not stagger. That alone told me everything.Her breath hitched once, sharply, then steadied. I felt it through her back, through the way her spine aligned instead of bowed.Luciano whimpered, his small fingers tightening in her clothing, silver
CHAPTER 50…VALENTINAThe Concord believed they were still in control.I felt that certainty the moment I stepped fully into the Origin Seat’s inner circle, with Luciano warm and steady in my arms and Andres positioned just behind my right shoulder.The air here did not bow to crowns or councils. It responded only to balance, and balance had no patience for arrogance.The thirteen Concord delegates stood arranged along the carved perimeter, their robes marked with sigils of authority older than most living dynasties. They watched me the way men watch a tide they believe they have already measured.That belief was their first mistake…“Your presence here is acknowledged,” the central delegate said, his voice smooth, carefully moderated. “But understand this, Your Majesty— this assembly convenes by Concord law, not royal decree.”I did not bristle or answer immediately. I adjusted Luciano slightl
CHAPTER 49…VALENTINAThe Origin Seat rose from the valley like it had been carved from the mountains themselves, untouched by time or ambition…Luciano slept in my arms, his small form heavier than his size suggested, calm as though he already knew the importance of this place.Andres walked beside me, silent but alert, his eyes tracing every angle, every shadow that could conceal intent. The moment we stepped onto the central plaza, the air thickened, not with threat, but with expectation…"Bearer of the Anchor, you have arrived." A voice— soft, restrained, impossibly precise, echoed across the Seat, filling the space without moving the lips of anyone present.I straightened, holding Luciano close, and let my gaze sweep across the chamber.Figures seated in the galleries above and around the central stone dais are observed without moving, their veils hiding faces, but not the intent behind their eyes."You are awar
CHAPTER 48…VALENTINAThe morning air was crisp, but it carried more than the scent of pine and earth. It carried intention. I could feel it in the subtle way the leaves trembled without wind, how the light fractured through the canopy above in jagged, uneven beams.Something had shifted. Not us— yet. but the world we moved through was listening.Luciano slept lightly against my chest. His silver pulsed faintly beneath the skin of his cheek, like a heartbeat mirrored in light. At first, I thought it was only the palace responding, but no. This was beyond the walls, beyond wards, beyond anything I had known. He had left the palace and carried a tether of influence into the wild.“They feel him,” Andres said quietly from beside me. His hand brushed briefly against my arm as an acknowledgment.“Do you feel it?”I nodded, though my heart skipped at the subtle, almost imperceptible pressure that seemed to rise from t







