It began with a flicker in the Codex—not a glow, not a pulse, but the absence of both.
A missing breath.
A forgotten moan.
A name that should have never existed, and yet now demanded voice.
The Codex, once a tome of inviolable authority, began to churn like wet paper soaked in unwritten climax. The glyphs bled down its spine, forming not words, but shapes of longing. Darius stood before it—half god, half memory—and felt the world tilt.
A name formed on the page.
Celestia.
But not the one he knew.
Not the Celestia whose tears had once sanctified his rage.
Not the Celestia who had writhed against him in temples that shattered with their joining.
Not the high priestess whose womb had anchored the first rupture of reality.
This Celestia had never touched him.
Had never loved him.
Had never known climax.
And yet she had been written.
