Fourteen days. Two weeks of relative silence, stale incense, and a diet that made rice taste like a luxury spice. And somehow, despite all odds and my complete lack of enthusiasm for formal spirituality, something did happen.

  Qi. Subtle. Ancient. But I felt it.

  Not dramatically, mind you. My legs now didn’t ache as much when I stretched anymore. My breathing came easier. My eyesight had sharpened just enough that I could read the tiny footnotes on the older scrolls without squinting. For the first time since reincarnating into this sacred sack of pug-shaped destiny, I didn’t feel like my limbs were stuffed with undercooked dough.

  So when the priest arrived at my door, whose expression was tight, robes flawless, and a voice clipped with duty, I met him with a nod and no small amount of relief.

  “The Venerable may join the others.”

  Ah. That tone. So respectful, so hollow. Almost like a butler announcing someone had just clogged up the plumbing.

  I followed.

  The Basilica hadn’t changed, but it felt sharper now. The edges were clearer, colors more vivid. Light fractured through skylights and bounced off polished stone in ways I hadn’t noticed before.

  Maybe it was the Qi. Maybe I’d just spent two weeks staring at unadorned walls and would now be dazzled by a spoon.

  We stopped in front of a thick, sun-etched door. The priest bowed. The door creaked open.

  My siblings were already inside.

  I stepped forward and was immediately reminded just how large they were. I’d grown, yes, but in the way moss “grows” on a boulder. My siblings were the boulders. Towering, ten feet tall at the shoulder, divine wolves who looked as if they were forged from sunlight.

  And then there was me. Four-foot-nine of squishy-pawed former house pet.

  They looked like beings sculpted to save the world. I looked like I got lost on my way to the kitchen.

  Vaelric and Saphiel sat near the center, speaking in low tones that made eavesdropping feel like a crime against theology. Their heads turned briefly as I entered, Saphiel gave me a single glance and nothing more. Vaelric didn’t even bother pausing his sentence.

  Fine.

  Gorran sat against the wall, perfectly still. His head turned as I crossed the threshold, his piercing eyes tracked me like a reflex. Then he looked away. Hard. As if the mere act of glancing in my direction had been an indulgence he immediately regretted.

  Nothing says “welcome home” like a rejection you don’t even earn in real-time.

  Eline was sprawled on a cushion by the window, one paw dangling, posture casual in the way that only truly chaotic beings can manage. Her gaze found me immediately.

  Then her head tilted.

  Just slightly.

  I walked past her, pretending not to notice. Took the nearest empty cushion. The fabric was plush, sun-warmed, too large for me by about a factor of three. I sank into it like a loaf of bread giving up.

  Rinvara was at the far end.

  She was still.

  Her body curled and her expression was unreadable. Her eyes were not quite focused on anything. There was none of that usual bounce, tail swish, and quiet humming she heavily embodied. She looked like a lantern someone had forgotten to light.

  After I arrived, no one spoke anymore.

  The room held a silence so thick it might’ve qualified as holy. Light streamed through the dome above, bathing everything in a warm, golden hush that didn’t reach anyone’s expression.

  Then Eline, who was still staring at me, tilted her head again.

  Then again.

  A slow blink.

  I didn’t respond.

  She blinked once more. Then went back to staring, as if expecting the air itself to explain something I clearly wasn’t saying.

  And then, there were three polite knocks on the door and a priest stepped in.

  He moved like someone trained to enter sacred spaces without drawing attention. Slim build, muted robes, eyes fixed respectfully low.

  “Now that all are present, the Council awaits,” he said simply.

  He bowed.

  The priest didn’t wait for our acknowledgement, just gave his line, bowed, and slowly exited the room.

  No one moved at first.

  Then Vaelric stood.

  Of course he did.

  The others followed without a word. Gorran rose with quiet force, Saphiel with grace so practiced it almost felt rehearsed. Eline simply followed. Even Rinvara moved, albeit slowly without her usual bounce.

  I slipped off the cushion and padded after them.

  We moved through the halls like shadows in procession. Gold-veined marble passed beneath our paws. Braziers lit with rune-flame flickered to life as we approached, then dimmed again once we passed. It was all very ceremonial. Very reverent.

  Which felt strange, considering we were basically being paraded toward an interview.

  The training grounds were already familiar—sun-kissed stone surrounded by script-etched pillars, ancient sigils faded from generations of impact. But this time, it wasn’t empty.

  Chairs had been arranged in a crescent near the far end of the grounds. Five figures sat beneath a high shadecloth embroidered with five suns—the insignia of the Inner Sanctum.

  They didn’t speak. Just watched us arrive.

  At first glance, they looked like statues carved from different philosophies of age. Four bishops, one high priest. One of them didn’t look like he’d traded his pulse for wisdom.

  That one was already staring at me.

  I knew all of them. Of course I did.

  My siblings may have been blessed with power and presence, but none of them had the attention span for ecclesiastical politics. I, on the other paw, had spent many a quiet afternoon researching church infrastructure like it was a particularly dramatic political drama. Because it was.

  We lined up as expected. No one had to say it, we just stopped before the shadecloth and waited.

  The Head Priest sat at the center, flanked by the bishops. Grand Solar Vicar Talem, whose face resembled dried river stone and whose voice once caused a lesser cleric to weep just from hearing the word “begin.”

  He did not greet us. He merely nodded, once, and turned his eyes to the others.

  The introductions began.

  “Bishop Quarroth,” the cleric who led us here and was now standing beside them, announced.

  First from the left.

  Ah, yes. The Inquisitor himself. His robes were black, sunmetal-threaded, cut with the harsh edges of ritual authority. His face was half-shadow, scar still visible from cheek to ear like a branding iron had kissed his youth goodbye. This was the man responsible for the capital’s purge—a “cleansing” of heresy in the capital that had ended with smoke rising from the basilica’s catacombs for a week.

  His reputation was less a footnote and more a warning label.

  He was still sanctioned, even now, to enact judgment on anyone “harboring evil” within the basilica walls. No trial. No ceremony. Just Quarroth, his scale-shaped soul resonance, and a judgment no one argued with.

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  “Bishop Serevan.”

  Second from the left.

  Clad in armor.

  Full plate, etched with old battle scripture. No visible face beneath the sun-smooth helm, just the faint hiss of breath from the slits. The Bishop of Blades, they called him. Defender of Sunmire’s western and southern borders. The kind of man who wrote his sermons in blood and delivered them from the ramparts.

  I’d once read that the armor hadn’t come off in forty years. Some said it was fused to him. Others said it was him.

  He gave no nod. No movement. Only silence.

  “Bishop Eydor.”

  Third.

  Now he looked normal. Almost too normal.

  Slight frame. Middle-aged at a glance, until you realized he’d been “middle-aged” since before the last High Priest was born.

  Eydor was the living record of (maybe add years?) Sunmire.

  A man who had stopped aging sometime between two civil wars and the invention of steamsteel. His hair was dark with streaks of gray that never changed. His eyes had the tired brightness of someone who had watched history loop too many times and found it increasingly unfunny.

  No one knew the full extent of his ability. They only knew it worked and that his longevity was not a simple blessing, but a function.

  He smiled faintly when our gazes met.

  Like he remembered me from somewhere I hadn’t been yet.

  “Bishop Tharne.”

  Last.

  Young.

  Too young.

  Maybe mid-twenties, if that. Auburn hair tousled just enough to seem unintentional. Suncloth robes clean, unwrinkled. A long pendant of rank hung at his chest.

  Tharne was the youngest bishop in Sunmire history. Rose through the priest-ranks like they were speedbumps. Outpaced most of his tutors by age sixteen. Led an elite infiltration team into Zorthari territory by nineteen. Recorded twelve missions, seven retrievals, and three “permanent silences.”

  He was all smiles now. But he hadn’t stopped watching me.

  Not once.

  I returned the look.

  His brow twitched, maybe amused or curious.

  “Each of you,” the cleric continued, “shall demonstrate your soul resonance and receive guidance from the bishop under whose care you are assigned.”

  There it was.

  Assignment.

  Technically mandatory. Technically “offered for growth.”

  But let’s be honest, it was a polite version of being claimed.

  A ripple of anticipation passed through my siblings. Their posture shifting. Ears angling. Mana flaring just slightly, like instincts waking up after too long in velvet rooms.

  Me?

  I stood still.

  And breathed.

  Because I already knew which of these men I did not want eyeing me like a curiosity.

  And unfortunately, that was exactly who already was.

  For a brief respite, there was silence. No announcement. No fanfare. Just the sunlight as the Head Priest rose to his feet.

  “You have heard your soul,” he said, voice clear as the morning above us. “You will now show us what it has said in return.”

  He didn’t raise his voice, yet every syllable settled like law. He turned to face us.

  “Vaelric.”

  Of course.

  Vaelric stepped forward, each stride purposeful, as if the earth gave way out of reverence. He took position at the center of the grounds, lifted his chin slightly, and breathed.

  The heat came before the light.

  It radiated from him in waves, golden and burning. The sun didn’t just follow him, it answered him. The stones beneath his paws hissed, and for a moment, he looked less like a sibling and more like a solar monument halfway to ascension.

  He held the glow without struggle, a controlled inferno stitched into his flesh.

  The bishops said nothing. They didn’t need to. Everyone saw it.

  Vaelric returned to his place. Not a flicker of wasted pride in his steps.

  “Rinvara.”

  She moved quietly, almost reluctantly. Her steps didn’t carry grandeur. But they carried weight. At the center, she didn’t summon anything.

  Instead, she turned her eyes toward one of the guards flanking the field.

  “Your shoulder,” she said, softly. “It’s still fractured.”

  I hadn’t even noticed.

  The man’s eyes widened, barely masking surprise. Rinvara stepped closer, brushed her nose gently to his arm, and breathed.

  A soft pulse of light shimmered between them. The tension in his shoulders vanished. He blinked, stunned.

  That was her resonance. Healing.

  She walked back slower than she came, and didn’t look up again.

  “Saphiel.”

  Unlike the others, she was already moving before her name finished. Her touch on the ground was brief. Barely a tap.

  But the result wasn’t.

  A quiet crack spread outward from her paw. The floor beneath her fissured. She lifted her paw and stepped back.

  The cracked pattern remained. Clean. Irreversible.

  There was no need for explanation.

  “Gorran.”

  He stepped out like a statue with breath. No posing. No ceremony. He simply stood. Then his body began to change.

  His fur darkened to slate, edges roughening until it resembled hardened earth. Light no longer reflected off him, it was absorbed. His paws pressed into the stone with quiet resistance, as if the ground had to agree to hold his weight.

  A walking fortress.

  He returned without a word.

  Then—

  “Eline.”

  She yawned. Not disrespectfully, just unbothered. She walked into the center, sat, stretched out one leg lazily, then looked at the bishops with a small smile.

  “I’d prefer to show mine to the bishops personally. And to you, Grand Vicar.”

  A pause.

  Then the Head Priest nodded. “Prepare the tent.”

  Clerics moved without hesitation. Within minutes, a domed pavilion was raised at the far end of the training grounds, reinforced with scripture and silencing runes. Eline flicked her tail once and walked in without a glance back. The bishops followed. Then the Head Priest.

  We waited for a bit. Probably around half an hour.

  And then, eventually, they returned. With unreadable faces as if they were pondering something.

  Eline took her place in line as though nothing had happened.

  Then,

  “Pophet.”

  I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that he might skip me. That I might be forgotten in the margins, lost between names forged from sunlight and power.

  But the Head Priest had a memory like carved iron.

  I stepped forward without confidence. Not toward the center of the training grounds, but towards where the tent still stood.

  “I’d prefer the same,” I said, my voice steady, if not quiet. “A private demonstration.”

  The Head Priest looked at me for a moment.

  Then nodded once.

  I didn’t look back at my siblings. I didn’t look at the bishops.

  I simply walked forward, into the tent.

  The flap of the tent fell shut behind me.

  Inside, it was quiet in the kind of way that made you feel like even your breath might be judged.

  They stood in a half-ring ahead of me; the four bishops, their robes absorbing the low light, and the Head Priest at the center. Five living monuments.

  I took my place in the center. The space was too wide for someone my size.

  “I’ll demonstrate now,” I said.

  No one answered.

  There was a stone block used for training set a few paces away. All I could do was push.

  So I did.

  I braced myself and struck it with one paw.

  The sound was dull. A light echo. The block shuddered under the hit and skidded maybe half an inch. It was just… underwhelming.

  I stepped back. Sat. Waited.

  At first, they said nothing.

  Then Bishop Serevan’s voice drifted out from behind the helmet, low and metallic. “Is that it?”

  My ears flattened.

  Quarroth didn’t wait.

  “She howled her soul out to give us heirs,” he said. “And this is what we’re left with?”

  Worthless.

  “Lady Aurelith gave everything,” he continued. “She didn’t even get a name carved beside hers before her body failed. And in exchange, the last one born has this excuse of an awakening.”

  A failure.

  “She howled the sun back into the sky, and this one can’t even spark a flame.”

  Weak.

  “Tell me,” Serevan said, voice barely audible over the pulse in my ears, “was she already dying? Is that why the runt came last? Or was it him that killed what strength she had left?”

  Yes.

  I didn’t move.

  Not because I was brave. Not because I was defiant.

  Because I was afraid that if I so much as twitched, the shaking in my chest would show.

  Quarroth took a step forward. Not much. Just enough to make the silence more cruel.

  “She continued an entire legacy to keep the faith alive,” he said. “And now this thing, this runt, steps forward to disgrace it?”

  No.

  Not legacy.

  A mistake.

  “Is this the standard now?” he asked. “A breathing liability with soft eyes and no light?”

  Liability.

  I looked down.

  I couldn’t look at any of them.

  My tail curled tight against my side. My shoulders tucked in. I wanted to be smaller. I wanted to be something they wouldn’t bother looking at. I wanted to be invisible again, like I used to be in the library alcove, just a wheezing footnote no one had to read.

  They kept talking.

  I didn’t hear every word.

  But the meanings stuck.

  Disgrace.

  Useless.

  Embarrassment.

  Burden.

  I found myself nodding.

  Just a little.

  Because the worst part was, deep down, I already believed all of it.

  Every word.

  Yes.