Inevitably, word of the Repository spread. Travelers from distant realms came seeking fragments they had lost: a forgotten love, a broken dream, a memory buried in grief. Some came humbly, begging for return. Others came with ambition, seeking to steal what was never theirs.
None succeeded.
The Autarch, once betrayed, was no longer blind. She saw through falsehood, silenced greed, and bound thieves in chains of their own making. For though she was no longer a queen of armies, her authority was absolute. The Repository could not be plundered, for it was not built of stone or steel — it was built of essence, and she alone commanded it.
Those who came in humility sometimes left with fragments rekindled, but those who came in arrogance left with nothing but the memory of her golden eyes, burning like twin suns in the dark.
And so the legend spread: the Exiled Autarch, warden of all that could not be forgotten, whose vaults whispered with eternity.