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" W ell then, let's get our magical behinds moving," Nana declared as she pulled chalk and herbs from her seemingly bottomless bag. "This moon isn't going to wait for us. Can you guys keep these asshats out of the chamber?" She asked Aidon, Hades, and Persephone.

Hades threw his head back and laughed as he shot lightning bolts out of his hands.

Nina and Jean-Marc took opposite sides of the chamber, working in perfect sync as they drew intricate symbols on the floor.

The chalk lines gleamed silver in the crystalline light.

They aligned each sigil precisely with the towering columns.

Nana, Clio, and Helena joined them, adding their own marks to the complex pattern emerging on the stone floor.

It was a massive circular diagram that mirrored the constellations above.

I let them do the work. There was a good chance I would need a crane to get up if I got down on the ground.

The chamber's song grew stronger with each completed symbol.

The pillars' harmonies were building toward something magnificent as the moon climbed higher.

I could feel the power gathering. The Heart of the First Song was pulsing in time with the rising energy.

Before they were able to finish, the destroyer faction burst through the temple's outer defenses with the kind of perfectly awful timing of dramatic interruptions. Dark magic ripped through the ancient wards like they were cobwebs. Everyone dove for cover as the temple shuddered around us.

"Protect the ritual circle!" Helena shouted as she threw up a barrier of pure light. Her power merged with the temple's defenses. I added a spell as well. Together, we created a shield that rippled like heat waves. "If those lines get disrupted now, the backlash could tear us the temple apart!"

"Which means what exactly?" I demanded as another contraction hit. That one nearly brought me to my knees. "Because I'd really like to know what kind of reality-shredding disaster we're trying to prevent while I'm in labor!"

"Do you really have to ask that?” Nana shot back as she smashed the nose of a destroyer.

An explosion made me jump back right as part of the ceiling came crashing down.

Hades's power caught the debris before it could hit anyone.

The near miss sent adrenaline shooting through me.

The mark on my belly flared with tricolored light that made the chamber's crystals sing higher.

The babies were responding to my fear. Nyssa's shadows writhed across the walls while Thaniel's temporal energy made time hiccup around us.

Melaina's golden resonance amplified everything until the very air hummed with power.

"The moon's almost at its zenith," Jean-Marc called out in a voice tight with urgency. "We have to start now. Ready or not! The alignment won't wait!"

"A little busy here!" Stella shot back as she deflected another blast of corrupted magic. The attack left scorch marks on the ancient marble. "These guys really don't want to play nice!"

Mom and Nana worked in perfect sync. Their combined power created a wall of pure force that pushed back the attackers. I had been worried Lyra was going to overpower us after I had the babies when I wasn’t able to fight her. She didn’t stand a chance with those two defending us.

"You'd think they'd have figured out by now that threatening a pregnant woman is a bad idea," Nana growled as she lobbed what looked suspiciously like tiny garden gnomes into the enemy ranks. The figurines grew when they hit and began whacking at limbs with their tiny garden tools.

The destroyer who'd agreed to help – Mara, she'd said her name was – moved to stand between us and her former allies. Her dark hair whipped around her face as power rose around her like storm clouds. "This ends now," she declared. "The Song is breaking free whether we want it or not. Stand down!"

"Traitor!" someone snarled from the attacking forces. "The power must remain bound! We've sacrificed too much to maintain control!"

"The power was never meant to be bound," countered the controller faction member who'd joined us. His magic was precise and controlled as he reinforced Helena's barriers. His usually perfect posture was rigid with determination. "We were wrong. All of us. We twisted something pure into chains."

Pain ripped through me, but this time something extraordinary happened.

The babies' powers surged together, creating something we'd never seen before.

Above my belly, a sphere of pure energy took shape.

It was no bigger than a melon but contained what looked like a miniature cosmos.

Nyssa's shadows swirled through it like dark matter, while Thaniel's temporal power created rivers of crystallized time that flowed in impossible patterns.

Melaina's resonance bound it all together.

Her power manifested as threads of golden music that wove through the darkness and light and turned the whole thing into something like a living galaxy in miniature.

The sphere pulsed with each of their heartbeats. It sent out ripples that bent the space around it. Where the ripples touched the temple walls, they left behind traces of starlight that refused to fade. The effect rippled outward like a stone dropped in a still pond.

It touched every magical bloodline present – destroyer, controller, and protector alike. Ancient power stirred in response, remembering what it was meant to be. The chamber's crystals sang higher. Their harmonies shifted into something that made the temple vibrate.

"Now!" Helena commanded, her eyes bright with ancient knowledge. "While the energies are aligned! Take your positions!"

Mara and Thomas, the controller, moved to their places in the ritual circle. Their power flowed into the ancient patterns etched on the floor and merged with Helena's protective magic. The crystals' song grew stronger as the time approached. Each pillar pulsed with its own unique frequency.

"Focus on the mark," Helena instructed as she began the ritual. Ancient words rolled from her tongue. "Let the babies' power guide you. They know what needs to be done."

That was a relief since no one had bothered to give me an instruction manual for this particular magical catastrophe. Another barrage of attacks hammered our shields, making the others pour more power into our defenses. I forced myself to breathe deeply, then let go and trust my babies' instincts.

The sphere of their combined power pulsed, and streams of magic began shifting around us.

Each person's bloodline magic showed in different colors.

Helena's burned copper-bright, Mara's shimmered forest green, while Thomas’s was reddish-orange.

The babies' power reached out and touched these streams, and where it did, the energy transformed.

Instead of flowing in straight, predictable lines, the magic began to spiral and weave. It was creating new patterns and new possibilities. Helena gasped as her copper magic suddenly sparked with threads of emerald. Mara's swirled with gold. Even Thomas’s twisted with strands of pink. That was new.

"They're rewriting the rules," Helena whispered. "Magic has always been fixed in the bloodlines. It’s predetermined. But they're showing us it can be... fluid. And adaptable." Her eyes widened as she channeled a spell, and it came out completely different than her usual working.

"Would you look at that," Nina crowed, her face lit with fierce pride.

"My baby siblings are already breaking all the rules, and they haven't even been born yet.

They're following the family example and changing things up.

Just wait until they're actually here." Her grin turned wicked as another wave of power rippled out from the sphere.

It set off new cascades of change through the ancient magic.

I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it happening through my connection to the mark.

The First Song was restoring the world and ancient balances that should never have been broken.

Power that had been twisted and bound for centuries began flowing freely once more.

It gave me one helluva head rush as it did.

"Keep going!" Mom shouted as she and Nana reinforced our defensive line. Magical energy crackled around them like lightning while Aidon and his parents fought with Selene on the other side.

"Whatever's happening, it's working! Their attacks are getting weaker!" Nana added.

The crystal teardrop containing the Heart shattered then, making us all duck.

The shards dissolved instead of hitting us.

The sound rang through the chamber like a bell struck in the depths of the ocean.

It was deep and profound. The Heart emerged as a swirling aurora of ancient power.

It hung suspended for a breath before it burst into streams of living light that spiraled up through the chamber's dome and out into the world beyond.

The crystalline pillars caught fire with its passing.

Each one became a fountain of pure magic that sprayed toward the heavens.

Where the streams met, they wove together into something that looked like the northern lights made solid.

Curtains of power that rippled with colors I'd never seen before and couldn't name.

The babies' sphere of power pulsed in answer. Waves of magic rippled out from the new harmony, transforming everything it touched. The chamber began to sing with a single melody that made my bones vibrate.

The corrupted magic of the destroyers and controllers simply.

.. dissolved. It was replaced by power that moved like quicksilver through their veins.

The destroyer faction's weapons crumbled to dust as the transformation swept through their ranks.

The air shimmered as the Song rewrote centuries of twisted magic.

The mark on my belly flared again before it lifted off of my skin and scattered into motes of light that swept across the temple walls. Ancient symbols blazed to life in their wake. Each one sang a different note in a harmony that hadn't been heard since the world was young.

The change raced outward like rings in a pond. It moved through the world like spring flooding through winter-dry riverbeds. It washed away everything artificial and controlled, leaving only what was wild and true and right.

"Holy shit," Helena breathed. She lowered her arms as the ritual circle's light faded to a gentle glow. "The balance is restored. Magic flows freely once more."

The chamber's crystals hummed in harmony with the restored Song.

Their music was pure and true. But before anyone could celebrate, the worst contraction yet doubled me over.

Something was definitely wrong. The babies' power flared wildly.

It was no longer in the perfect harmony we'd just achieved.

This was their natural reaction to my fear.

Nina was right. We were going to have our hands full.

"Aidon," I gasped, clutching my belly as fear gripped me. The pain was unlike anything I'd felt before. "Something's wrong. The babies-" His eyes went wide as he caught me. His power gathered around us protectively.

"Clio!" Mom's voice carried barely controlled panic. "We need you now!"

Clio sprinted toward me, but she was too late.

Something deep in my core wrenched sideways.

Magic erupted from me in a tidal wave of purple, gold, and electric blue light.

"Oh shit," I gasped. Terror clawed at my throat.

I was only twenty-six weeks along. Too early.

Way too early. All our work restoring the First Song wouldn't mean anything if we couldn't keep these babies safe inside me where they belonged.

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