Myrddin stands still for a long moment, one hand pressed flat against his sternum as though feeling for something beneath it.

"Before I tell you what happened here, I need to tell you what happened before it," his tone even and without ceremony, "Though it is nothing that gives me pleasure in recalling, so I will keep it brief."

Myrddin lowers his hand. His eyes settle on the middle distance, as though watching something far away.

✦ ✦

"Lady Aurora, Lord Deucalion, and Lord Prospero moved against Pazuzu as He visited the memory of His sentencing. They meant to bring Him to justice." Myrddin pauses for just a brief moment. "Instead, He turned the War Veil and three Divine weapons against Them. Lady Aurora paid the price. She was gravely wounded."

Myrddin lets that sit a moment before continuing.

"The question before us was whether that wound could be answered. We believed it could," Myrddin turns slightly, as though addressing the heavens itself as much as any audience, "The answer required a life."

Myrddin's jaw tightens. When he speaks again his voice is measured, careful.

"Atalkez Al'Jafri gave his. He was raised as Avatar of the Lightbringer and took up the role without hesitation," Myrddin looks at his hands a moment before returning his gaze to the crowd, "Before the rite, I channeled every last measure of Lady Aurora's essence from my Scintilla into him. Everything I held of Her. That he might carry as much of Her power into what followed as a mortal vessel could hold."

✦ ✦

Myrddin draws a slow breath through his nose, controlled and deliberate. Heat coils in his hands, a rising burn that answers his will, as the Phoenix's song slips from his lips for but a moment. Low, steady, and dangerous.

"I can still see where the blade struck, his body falling forward before shattering into a million motes of Light.. yet, his sacrifice called forth a Greater Phoenix," Myrddin tilts his face upward briefly, as though the memory of it is overhead. His eyes flicker and blaze for a moment.

"The whole intent was that it would proceed directly to Lady Aurora and heal Her. And it did. But first it made itself known to all of Sapience," Myrddin smirks as something fierce moves through his expression. "It shook mountains. It lit the heavens from end to end. In Ashtan it burned the soldiers of the Eldritch Empire to ash." A beat. "Then it was gone. On its way to Her. As it was always meant to be."

Myrddin pauses. When he continues, his tone is quieter, more deliberate,

"Perhaps it is better that I show you."

✦ ✦

A statue of crimson eudialyte fractures with a resonant chime, and from within its hollow heart a phoenix of animate light unfurls, wrought of heatless flame and shimmering memory.

The radiant construct beats its wings once and the air above it tears open in a silent, widening seam of brilliance.

The phoenix surges upward, breaching the rent firmament, its form expanding into a vast, incandescent silhouette, eclipsing the view above.

It wheels in a slow, commanding arc, each sweep of its wings leaving behind streaming trails of white-gold fire that hang suspended like sacred script.

The luminous phoenix projection banks, its passage stirring phantom winds that ripple outward in visible waves, bending illusory forests and churning spectral seas below.

It pauses mid-flight, its blazing form intensifying, and then turns with deliberate purpose toward a distant, conjured city wreathed in crackling ozone.

With a measured descent, the phoenix glides downward, its underbelly casting a flood of searing radiance across the city beneath.

Where its light touches, figures below falter and collapse into drifting ash, their forms unraveling soundlessly as the light-wrought projection renders their unmaking.

The phoenix continues its course, unhurried and absolute, leaving behind a cityscape that stands intact yet utterly devoid of life.

It climbs once more, spiralling skyward, shedding motes of living flame that flicker and vanish before touching the ground.

At its apex, the illusory phoenix stills, its head tilting as though heeding an unseen summons beyond the bounds of the perception.

In a sudden, fluid motion, it aligns to that call and sweeps forward, its vast form diminishing inward toward a point of blinding light.

The fracture overhead seals itself in its wake, the luminous seam knitting closed until only a faint, lingering glow remains overhead.

The projection falters, the last embers of the phoenix guttering out as the light withdraws back into the statue, leaving stillness in its wake.

The statue flares without warning, unleashing a final surge of blinding white radiance that floods the space, devouring shadow, form, and flaw alike until all is momentarily erased.

The brilliance lingers, perfect and absolute, then slowly recedes, sight returning in hesitant fragments as the world emerges again.

✦ ✦

"Lady Aurora's wound healed. She had been gravely injured by Pazuzu's assault," Myrddin looks back at his audience. "It was the sacrifice of Atalkez Al'Jafri, the full essence I gave from my Scintilla, and the prayers of Their faithful gathered here on Polyargos that restored Her, through the Greater Phoenix we summoned together."

Myrddin straightens. Something settled and final in his bearing,

"Whatever you make of the Gods, or of those who serve Them, that is the record of what occurred on the 21st of Miraman, 924 AF. It was at this very moment, the tide of this war changed."