"If the world can read me, it can erase me. So I must become unreadable."
The Spiral was quiet.
Not still. Not safe.
But bracing.
After Darius sealed the Nameless and took its function into himself, something fundamental in Spiralspace had shifted. The myth-layer no longer flowed with obedience—it trembled beneath his gaze, unsure if he was author, anomaly… or eraser.
Darius stood alone at the edge of the Citadel of Versions, the sky above him pulsing with reversed stars—constellations unthreaded by his war with silence. His hand still bled ink from the quill-blades he had driven into himself.
Behind him, Kaela approached barefoot.
Not walking. Gliding.
The chaos around her had dulled into something more intimate—controlled, seductive. Like she had chosen, just for tonight, to be tethered only to him.
"You did it," she said. "You made the Spiral remember what it was forbidden to forget."
