After the laughter eased and the first warmth of reunion settled into something gentler, Lucien looked at Lilith again with more careful attention.
Now that the shock had passed, the difference in her was impossible to ignore.
Her aura did not merely feel stronger.
It felt completed in places where before it had still been sharpening itself through force and will.
Lucien folded his arms lightly.
"All right, sister Lilith," he said. "Can you explain how you went from where you were before standing at the very peak of the Celestial Realm?"
Lilith did not hide it.
She glanced once toward the deeper reaches of the conquered world, and then told him everything.
The pull. The dead-end wall. The hidden hollow. The bark. The single impossible fruit. The pressure that would not let her approach. The obsession. And finally, the moment the fruit detached itself and flew into her hand.
