LYRA'S POV
Maya found me in the restoration chamber three days after the hundredth fragment integration, her singular consciousness radiating determination that I could perceive across all forty-one dimensional states before she spoke a word.
"We need to talk," she said quietly, and something in her tone made my distributed awareness focus entirely on her presence despite constant background coordination pressure. "About us. About what this is between us and where it's going."
My forty-one states contracted with anxiety I couldn't fully suppress across dimensional frameworks. We'd been dancing around this conversation for months—the fundamental incompatibility between my divine immortality and her mortal lifespan. The reality that even if we committed completely to each other, I would eventually watch her age and die while I remained unchanged across centuries that would continue long after her existence ended.
"Maya—"
