Location: Belém, Pará
Time: 05:42 AM
The plane landed in Belém under fine dawn rain. When Gabriel entered his apartment, the sun was beginning to tint the sky a hopeful gray. He didn't unpack his bags. He simply walked to the window. The humid air entering was familiar, the smell of home.
The boy who had arrived fleeing no longer existed. In his place was a man who had found purpose.
The days following their return from São Paulo had a different glow. The silver medal wasn't a trophy on a shelf, but a catalyst. Enactus UFPA was now the center of attention, and the Resilients moved through campus with new confidence.
For Gabriel, the greatest change was internal. The peace he'd felt after the conversation with Sofia wasn't temporary; it was a new state of being. He was no longer hiding from the Light; he was learning to hold it.
He sat at his desk, reviewing next steps for the "Water of Tomorrow" project, when the air in the room changed. It became thinner. Sharper.
Gabriel looked at the coffee table.
Where nothing had been a moment ago, there now rested an envelope of pale, almost luminous parchment. It didn't belong in this world. The paper seemed to hum with a low vibration that made the wood beneath it tremble.
At its center, written in the same elegant, impossible handwriting he remembered from a life he tried to forget: "Gabriel."
He picked it up, hands trembling slightly. It was sealed with silver wax, marked with the emblem of two crescent moons facing each other.
He broke the seal. The scent of ozone and moonflowers filled the small apartment. The message was short, the ink shimmering like liquid starlight:
Solmere,
The bridge you opened cannot be closed. They felt your light. The Shadows are coming.
I need to find you before they do.
— L.
Solmere. Shadows.
The air in his lungs seemed to freeze. It wasn't just a letter. It was a warning shot.
[System Alert: Dimensional Resonance Detected.]
[Source: Extra-Planar Origin.]
[Threat Level: Unknown.]
Gabriel looked out the window at sleeping Belém. He had finally accepted himself as the "Light of the Resilients." He knew this was his home. But the letter in his hand was a promise that peace was temporary.
Larger worlds were in motion. And he was at the center of the collision.
...
Location: UFPA Campus, Geosciences Building
Time: 06:15 AM
The only light in the building came from Professor Henrique's office.
On his computer screen weren't academic theses or geological surveys. There were complex graphs mapping mana fluctuations. A red line spiked violently at the timestamp corresponding to the Enactus presentation in São Paulo.
Beside it, a shaky video extracted from social media played on a loop. It showed Gabriel's silhouette on stage, the golden crown of light forming above his head.
Henrique watched it with a grim expression. He picked up an encrypted phone.
"Field report," he said, his voice stripped of any academic warmth, replaced by a cold, military precision. "The Anomaly we've been monitoring has reappeared. And it's evolving."
He listened to the voice on the other end — a voice that sounded metallic and distant.n
"No, it's no longer passive," Henrique continued, eyes fixed on Gabriel's image. "There was an active, high-magnitude emission. The São Paulo event confirmed he has breached the Exposure Threshold."
He paused, rubbing his temples.
"My recommendation is clear. Level 2 observation protocol is insufficient. The Anomaly is becoming a Nexus. I suggest we elevate to Level 3: Preparation for Containment."
He hung up. There was no malice in his face. Only the heavy burden of a guardian who sees a storm forming on the horizon and knows he'll have to do whatever is necessary to protect his world.
Even if it means destroying a brilliant young man.
...
Location: [REDACTED] - Stellarum
Time: [Time is Irrelevant]
The universe folded.
Far from the silent apartment in Belém, under a night sky of deep indigo where two silver moons hung like watchful eyes, a figure stood on a balcony carved from white stone.
The architecture around was impossible: towers that twisted toward the sky as if made of solidified song, gardens where crystal flowers emitted a soft, bioluminescent glow.
But the splendor was stained.
Cracks ran through the tower walls, bleeding violet energy. Dark, slow smoke rose from the horizon — a sign of a wound in reality that wouldn't close. The Shadows were eating the edges of the world.
At the center of the balcony, on an obsidian pedestal, rested a silver basin filled with water dark as night. The surface didn't reflect the two moons, but a distant scene: a small room in Brazil, a dark-haired young man holding a parchment sheet with an expression of shock and determination.
Lunaris Stellara watched Gabriel's image.
Her face, which glowed with the soft light of divinity, was marked by infinite sadness and an iron will. She saw him put away the letter. She felt, through the soul bond that still united them across the void, the wave of fear and resolution that coursed through him.
It was enough. The call had been delivered.
She raised her face to the two moons, the silver light highlighting the determination in her eyes. His absence was an open wound in her world, an imbalance that threatened to consume everything.
The Bridge needed to be restored. The Sovereign needed her Shield.
She dissolved the image in the basin with a gesture. The water returned to reflecting her own world's dying sky. Then she whispered to the night, a promise that was simultaneously an oath and a declaration of war:
"I will find you, Solmere. Whatever the cost."
[END OF BOOK ONE]