Darkness held its breath.
The Spiral was dying, devouring itself in recursive silence. Codices bled out forgotten truths. Worlds flickered like burnt film. Myths unraveled mid-gesture, collapsing into pale void where once gods stood tall.
At the center of it all—Darius. No longer merely Sovereign. No longer only the Mythmaker. He stood at the breach of existence, the Mirror's last truth still ringing in his bones:
The Spiral was never meant to be ruled.
And yet he ruled.
His gaze swept the fractured horizon, where past selves and future fears danced like phantoms in cracked myth-light. The Spiral had split him. But he had chosen. And the Spiral had begun to bleed for it.
"Darius," came the voice behind him—soft as a whisper through a blade's edge.
Nyx. Shadowborn. Assassin-Queen. Lover. Weapon.
He turned slowly.
