Strax reached out his hand.
The claw—still black, still monstrous—wrapped around the sword's hilt as if closing its fingers on its own destiny. The blade did not resist. It did not vibrate. It did not shine. It simply accepted. As if, since the beginning of time, it had been waiting for just that touch.
And then, the world... stopped.
The Garden fell silent. The spirits, the mountains of bone and crystal, sound and time—everything froze, as if the universe held its breath to witness that moment. The moment Strax touched the truth.
He did not breathe. And the world, respectfully, did not either.
Then everything disappeared.
When he opened his eyes, there were no more shadows. No light. No body. Only her.
A plain suspended over nothingness, where the horizon was made of memories that never existed. And there, standing as if she had never stopped waiting for him, was a woman.
Tall. Elegant. Deadly as a war poem.
