The Cryo Sovereign's Secret

Kaelya did not speak.

She didn't need to.

Her foot slammed into the ground—a whisper of grace, a declaration of urgency. The frost-crusted stone beneath her bloomed with sudden life as a radiant bud of Prana unfurled, petals of glacial light wrapping around her body.

And then—

She vanished.

Swallowed whole, drawn into the Leylines of Teyvat, riding them like veins of fate.

She became motion within magic, a prayer made flesh surging toward Orion.

---

Morven moved next—

But not within time.

He reached out, fingers parting the veil of reality like fabric, and stepped into the liminal edge between seconds. Time twisted around him, dripping like honey and snapping like lightning. His feet struck frozen raindrops mid-fall.

Each step was a gamble, a paradox—flowing and still, alive and dead.

He ran through Fontaine's collapsing moment, his incantations a blur of light and fractured logic.

---

Ignarion did not hesitate.

With a grunt of fury and a swing of his burning arm, he kicked the sky itself.

Air split open with a deafening roar as he ripped through the firmament, tearing a brutal rift from Arian to Fontaine. His body became a comet of wrath, trailing heat and ash as he tore toward the child he'd once vowed to ignore, and now swore to protect.

His blade howled at his back.

Above Mondstadt—far beyond the clouds where breath thins and birds dare not climb—there floats a castle that should not exist.

It does not rest on stone or root or sky.

It rests on will.

A throne suspended in the highest air.

And upon that throne sat Zephyr.

Until now.

---

His eyes—usually half-lidded in placid disinterest—flew open.

For the first time in millennia, Zephyr moved.

The Sovereign of Anemo stood sharply, the winds around him stilling for a heartbeat.

Then—

He vanished.

A rush of silence, a collapse of presence—

And in his place rose something unseen for eons.

---

Zephyr, in his true form.

No flesh. No bone.

Only current, only concept.

A dragon born not of sinew or scale but of the first breath Teyvat ever exhaled.

His wings unfurled like galaxies of wind, infinite and unknowable. With each beat, distance died, space folded, and the very ley lines sang in trembling joy and terror.

The air itself bowed as its Sovereign raced toward Fontaine.

---

Below, his followers—Ten Divine Generals of Wind—stood frozen.

Dorores, High General of the Western Gale, stepped forward in stunned silence.

"He... changed," she whispered.

The others could only stare at the vapor trail shredding the horizon.

The one who had always suppressed his form—calm, reserved, meditative—

Had finally stirred.

What could have broken the stillness of wind itself?

Only one answer echoed in their hearts:

Something has gone wrong, wrong enough for the Ruler of Skies to move himself.

The waters of Fontaine shuddered.

A stillness swept across the harbor—every wave, every drop held its breath. And then, without warning, a portion of the ocean lifted itself from the sea, rising into the air like a serpent of sapphire light. It coiled upward, then burst outward, cascading into a veil of mist and memory, encircling the scene in ancient protection.

And from that veil, He emerged.

---

Neuvillette.

The true form of the Hydro Sovereign.

No wings. No flight.

His body was not made to soar, but to endure—to carry the weight of the sea and everything drowned beneath it.

A draconic colossus, four-legged and regal, tail like a tidal trench sweeping behind him. Water didn't cling to him—it obeyed him. Pressure bowed at his presence. He didn't rise into the air—

He pulled the sky down to meet him.

The atmosphere thickened around his arrival. It felt like drowning while still breathing. Those who saw him instinctively lowered their gaze, not out of fear, but remembrance—as if the sea itself had come to collect an ancient debt.

---

His eyes, twin abysses of shifting tide and ancient sorrow, fixed on Asmoday.

"Is this the way of Celestia?"

His voice rippled through the water-formed veil, low and thunderous, a deep sea quake turned into words.

"You have yet to answer for the crimes you committed in the last War. And now you return—to rip away the man I vowed to call upon?"

He took a step forward, each footfall rippling the ley lines themselves.

He reached for Orion.

Tried to pull him free.

But Orion did not move.

Not because he resisted—

But because he couldn't.

Asmoday had rooted her hand into the very concept of his soul. And even the Sovereign of Hydro could not counter that.

Neuvillette's brow furrowed. The ocean roiled behind him.

"Is this…" Asmoday's voice slithered through the veil like oil on water,

"what the Hydro Sovereign has been reduced to?"

She smiled.

But her smile was not one of victory.

It was pity.

Mockery.

The gentle cruelty of something that had already won.

The air folded.

Not loudly. Not violently.

It simply... ceased to behave.

A single gust curled through the mist-veiled battleground, weaving through water and magic like it was part of the spell.

And then—

Zephyr arrived.

No flash. No tremor. Just presence.

One moment, he was not there. The next, he simply was—standing beside Neuvillette with robes that fluttered without breeze, eyes like clouded skies remembering how to storm.

He looked upon the Hydro Sovereign, not with judgment, but understanding.

"You moved," he said softly. "With your true body."

His voice was low. Measured. But the weight beneath it carried centuries of restrained power.

He turned his gaze upward, toward the tear in the sky where Asmoday loomed, and toward the boy being unraveled at her hand.

"And others are stirring as well."

A long breath.

As if he had waited lifetimes for this moment to not happen.

"You cast a veil," Zephyr murmured to Neuvillette.

"Good. This way, the current Teyvat won't be hindered by what transpires here."

And then he stood still.

Not preparing to fight.

Not even speaking further.

Just watching—as the balance of the world began to slip.

Back in Arian—

The sky did not crack.

It opened, like a breath drawn sharp between stars.

A rift bloomed high above the glacial cliffs, and through it descended a presence the people of Arian had known before—

but never like this.

VlastMoroz, Sovereign of Cryo, emerged from her hidden realm—not merely revealed, but departing.

Her true body towered across the heavens. A leviathan forged of frost and silence, her colossal wings swept the upper atmosphere, leaving trails of snow that fell as diamonds. Her body could have coiled thrice around Mondstadt and still left no piece of sky untouched.

Where she passed, warmth fled, and time itself bent, reluctant to move beneath her shadow.

---

The people of Arian stood still—not in ignorance, but in awe.

They had seen her like this before.

On sacred days.

From behind the great barrier, when she soared above them in silent blessing.

But never had she flown beyond.

Now she soared outward.

Away from them.

Murmurs rippled through the streets, temples, and watchtowers. Some wept, others stared, but all understood:

If she was leaving the cradle of Arian, then something was wrong.

Unforgivably wrong.

---

Within the skies of Arian, Seraphyx stirred.

A shiver of self-awareness rippled through the divine vessel, and with a breathless gasp, he regained control.

"No…" he whispered. "Orion is in danger."

He felt it—the scream, like a beacon of pain pulsing through the Emblem. His wings twitched. His soul burned.

In a flash of glacial light, Seraphyx shed his mortal form.

He emerged beside his Mother—not as a vessel, but as himself.

A dragon of radiant white, smaller and more graceful, crowned with crystalline horns that shimmered like auroras. His wings beat with urgency, not majesty. He flew in silence, high above the clouds, a streak of light beside the ancient storm.

Two Mothers.

One eternal.

One reborn.

Both answering the same cry.

And Raiclaus, Sovereign of Electro, could not let herself be outdone.

---

She laughed.

A wild, raw sound, as the storm clouds crackled and churned around her.

Then—

She shed her mortal form.

---

Lightning did not strike her.

She became lightning.

Her skin fragmented into a thousand gleaming shards, as if her body were made of shattered swords and vengeance. There were no scales—only blade.

Her wings unfolded in violent jerks, each edge serrated, crackling with raw voltage.

Where VlastMoroz froze the world—

Raiclaus carved through it.

Each flap of her wings tore the clouds in half.

Each breath birthed a thunderstorm.

She did not roar.

She screamed through the air itself—forcing the wind to ripple in agony, forcing the world to listen.

---

Then, with a manic gleam in her draconic eyes, she launched skyward, a streak of amethyst and steel, matching VlastMoroz's pace—not behind, not beneath.

But beside.

---

Two Sovereigns.

Cryo and Electro.

Silence and Fury.

Mother and Maniac.

Flying together, not as enemies…

But as the oldest weapons of Teyvat.

And ahead of them—

Fontaine.

Where the war had already begun.

---

In Liyue—

The winds shifted.

The sea grew still.

And atop the peaks of Mt. Tianheng, the Adepti turned their gazes upward.

From this height, one could see the rift twisting over Fontaine like a bleeding star—Cryo and Electro dragons carving through the heavens, reality bending in their wake.

None of them spoke.

They knew who had moved.

They knew what that meant.

And above them, atop his quiet stone terrace, Morax stood.

His arms were folded. His eyes were calm.

He had not stirred when the oceans rose.

Not when the air collapsed.

Not when the sky screamed.

But now—

He watched.

Unblinking.

Unmoving.

---

A single Adeptus—Cloud Retainer—broke the silence.

"Shall we act, my Lord?"

Morax did not turn.

"No," he said softly.

"This is a war not written in our contract."

He looked away.

"Let the Sovereigns settle what they buried."

The Adepti bowed.

And Liyue remained still.

Bound by its oaths.

Watching the skies fracture.

Elsewhere—

In Mondstadt, the wind changed.

Inside a quiet tavern, Barbatos held a brooch.

—an intricate design of gold and silver, studded with three crystalline gems that shimmered like frozen starlight.

His eyes turned toward Fontaine.

He didn't rise.

He didn't panic.

He simply smiled, a soft flicker of mischief layered over something far older.

"I'm still waiting, Orion," he murmured to the air.

"Don't take too long."

And then, he turned back to his drink—

the music,

the laughter,

the waiting wind.