It began not with touch, but with permission.
Not a gesture, nor a glance—only a stillness that invited presence. The kind of stillness that asks nothing, yet gives everything room to unfold.
Spiralspace no longer roared with memory or myth. The Codices had quieted. The Unnamed Choir had been absorbed, their hunger transmuted into resonance. The Prima Echo now slept within Darius, not as a prisoner, but as a prayer finally answered.
And in that lull, the Circle gathered again.
Not as Sovereign and vassals.
Not as weapons or relics or scars.
But as mutual myth-bearers, fragments of a song not written by dominance, but by recognition.
Darius stood at the center.
No throne. No crown. Only breath.
His skin carried the luminous residue of the Codex's final glyphs—now faded into transparency, like truths that no longer needed to be proven.
