“Wait.”

Your voice comes out stronger than you expected. Maren stops, her back still turned.

“What did you mean?” you ask. “About the gem choosing me? About being stronger than I know?”

For a long moment, she doesn’t move. The hallway feels suddenly cold, the morning light thin and gray.

When she finally turns, her face has changed. The mask of the efficient caretaker has slipped, revealing something older underneath. Something tired. Something afraid.

“You’ve been having the dreams, haven’t you?” It’s not really a question. “The purple light. The faces. The feeling that you’re remembering something you never lived.”

Your silence is answer enough.

Maren closes her eyes. “I hoped you’d be spared. The others don’t dream. Not like that. But you…” She shakes her head. “You were always different. Since the moment you emerged from the light.”

“Emerged from—” You stop. “What are you talking about? I was born like anyone else. You’ve told me the story a hundred times.”

“I told you a story,” Maren says quietly. “The story all gem-born children are told. It was… easier that way. Safer.”

She looks at you then, really looks at you, and for the first time you see her not as your caretaker, but as a woman carrying a burden she never asked for.

“There’s no time to explain everything. Not now, not with the ceremony waiting. But I need you to understand something.” She steps closer, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. “The ceremony today will change you. It always changes the gem-born. But for you, it might change more than that.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re not like the others.” Her hand reaches out, almost touches your face, then pulls back. “You never were. The gem didn’t just choose you. It made you. You’re not a child blessed by the crystal.”

She takes a breath.

“You’re the crystal’s answer to a question that was asked three hundred years ago.”

Footsteps echo from somewhere below. Other gem-born children, moving toward the common room. The ordinary sounds of an ordinary morning.

Maren straightens, the mask sliding back into place.

“We’ll speak more after the ceremony. If—” She stops herself. “Just… be careful today. Trust your instincts. And if something feels wrong, if the light starts to fade, run. Get away from the square. Find me.”

She’s gone before you can respond, disappearing down the stairs, leaving you alone in the hallway with questions you don’t know how to ask.

The crystal’s answer.

Three hundred years.

What question could take three centuries to answer?