I didn't know I could be surprised like that anymore.
I've met dragons, demons, saints, monsters that wear cities like coats. I've split a Calamity apart and walked away with breath left in my lungs. But watching Lyra Vionn step into the hall and make the room behave like it had always been waiting for her—that reached a part of me I thought was numb.
The Seven. The Concord. Peoples with a Divine on each throne, who fight Demon Lords in the open and win often enough to still be here.
They weren't in the saga of the Divine Swordsman.
Back then, the world felt like a stage with five cast members and too many props. Demons, humans, and the usual suspects, arranged by a storyteller who liked tight loops and clean pain. If the Seven existed in that story, they never walked onto the page. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe the world wasn't wide enough.
I felt the thought try to dig its hooks in, the old habit of looking backward for answers. I let it slide off.
