The truth, once spoken, became a living current in the air of the Sky-Mirror Spire. The weight of Bahamut's revelation didn't crush Seraphina; it forged her. The lingering sense of being judged, of pleading her case before unassailable gods, was gone. In its place was a cold, clear certainty. They were not supplicants. They were rivals. They were revolutionaries.
She stood at the central dais, no longer a queen defending her throne, but a general surveying a map of a war she had just learned the true name of. Damon was a solid, watchful presence at her side, his silence more eloquent than any speech. The plan for the New Cosmic Accord, once a desperate gamble for survival, now felt like a declaration of war—a war they hadn't started, but one they were damned well going to finish.
