Aurora Livaal packed the star-lit crystal into her satchel before her mentor could catch her. The old woman had told her to wait a full cycle before attempting the crossing. Aurora was done waiting. Somewhere on Earth, billions of people slept through their own power, and she meant to wake them. She crossed the sanctuary floor in bare feet. The dome above her held the morning light in its faceted panels, throwing pale blue shapes across the tiles. Symbols carved into the outer walls marked every discipline her people had mastered. Healing was hers. She had lit the fevered back to health, mended fractures with her hands, poured green fire into dying elders until they laughed again. On Arcturus, that was enough. On Earth, her mentor said, it would not be. The blue cat followed her, seven tails drifting behind it like slow smoke. Three green eyes tracked her every move. "Don't look at me like that," Aurora said. "She won't say yes tomorrow either." She knelt at the old chest near the scribe's desk and turned the iron key. Inside lay her mentor's field journals, the ones Aurora was not supposed to open until she was ready. She lifted the top volume. The pages smelled of dust and dried lavender. She read the warning on the first page aloud. "Human minds are shuttered. A healer's light, unfiltered, will not open them. It will burn the wick." Aurora set the book down. She had known the risk in vague terms. Seeing it written flattened her stomach. Her healing energy was a river. Humans, according to the journal, were paper lanterns. She would not wake them. She would set them alight. She looked up at the posters her mentor had pinned above the desk, the diagrams of chakras and star maps and breath. She had walked past them a thousand times without studying them. Now she pulled one down and spread it flat. For two hours she read. She learned that human consciousness moved in narrow bands, that fear locked the higher centers shut, that a healer had to enter as a whisper, not a flood. She learned to throttle her own current. She practiced on the cat, dimming her palms until the animal's fur barely stirred. The third eye on the cat's brow blinked once in approval. When she stood, the satchel felt different in her hand. The crystal inside still hummed for the crossing. But now she knew how much of herself to bring, and how much to leave at the door. She placed the journal back in the chest and left the lid open, so her mentor would see it had been read. Then she sat cross-legged on the tiles, set the crystal on her knee, and closed two of her eyes. The third stayed open, aimed at a small blue planet she had never touched.