The throne moved.
Not of its own will, but as if pulled.
Dragged by unseen gravities. Drawn toward the Garden not as a conqueror, but as an anchor—a point of consequence around which the Unwritten began to orbit. Their shapes were still malformed, erratic, aching. But something had shifted.
They were no longer rushing to destroy.
They were coming to speak.
Aiden stood at the head of the Pact, now fully gathered atop the inner terrace of the Garden. The battlefield below rippled not with blood but with storylines, all held in abeyance—as if the world itself held its breath.
"They're not attacking," Kael muttered. His hand rested on the hilt of his blade, but it did not draw.
"Because for the first time," Aiden said, "they have somewhere to arrive from."
A single figure stepped from their ranks.
