The sky never looked heavier.
The Architect hung above Veltrin not like a god, not like a storm—but like a question no one had ever dared ask. Its voice had left no sound, only silence. The kind of silence that crept into people's bones and made them wonder if they were meant to speak at all.
Are you willing to be forgotten?
The words rang through the city not as command, but as invitation.
Sykaion stood beneath it, his hand on the Second Ledger, fingers twitching with memory. He felt the question press into him like a second heartbeat. Not just what it asked, but what it meant.
To erase your name to protect your truth.
To be the origin of a world that could never credit you.
Would he surrender the myth he never asked for?
Could he?
Arlyss said nothing. She stood near, eyes locked on his face, as if trying to memorize every line. Zeraphine hovered on the far steps, her lenses flickering. Neither pushed him. They both knew.
This wasn't a decision anyone could help make.
Sykaion stepped forward. The Mirror watched, still silent. Still perfect. But less real now—its image flickering at the edges. The Architect's influence made it stronger, but only if it remained unanswered.
He reached into his coat.
Drew out a coin.
The same coin he had found on the day the system first noticed him. Burned. Cracked. Useless by function.
But never by meaning.
He held it in the air.
"You want to know if I'm willing to vanish?"
The sky trembled.
"Then let this be the memory that stays. Not me. Not my face. Not my name. Just this—"
He tossed the coin into the Second Ledger.
It disappeared.
And then the Articles burned brighter than they ever had.
People gasped.
Because for a moment, they couldn't remember who had written them.
Only that they were true.
The Mirror blinked.
Flickered.
And shattered.
No fanfare.
No violence.
It simply ceased to hold.
Because it had never paid the cost of truth.
The Architect stilled.
Above Veltrin, it no longer hovered.
It waited.
Not in power.
In reverence.
As if Sykaion had just passed the test that hadn't been meant to be passed.
He dropped to one knee.
Breathing hard.
The world remembered the Articles.
But not the man.
Until a child stepped forward.
Pointed.
"That's him. That's the one who let go."
And in that moment, he knew—
To be forgotten is not to be erased.
It's to become foundation.
But the Architect was not finished.
Its tower darkened.
Its presence deepened.
And it asked again.
Not to Sykaion.
But to everyone.
Are you willing to be forgotten?