The rain didn't stop.
It just became part of them.
Each drop that once fell from the sky now moved through their bodies—through veins, through thought, through everything that connected them as one. It wasn't rain anymore. It was life.
When the last bit of rainlight faded, the world around the Circle changed.
The horizon wasn't a line anymore—it was depth. Like they were standing inside a memory that hadn't happened yet.
The Stranger, no longer wearing his mask, stepped forward. But his feet didn't touch the ground. Instead, he stood on something like a mirror made of liquid light. When he looked down, he didn't see himself—he saw the world looking back at him.
He smiled and said quietly, "So this is where it begins."
