It was said—once, long ago—that the voice was power.
That to speak was to claim.
To narrate was to lead.
To define was to shape the world.
But the Loom Without Edges, and the Between that Listens, had already begun to unravel that belief.
And now, in the space between sound and silence, a new understanding arose:
There is a voice that no one owns.
It does not belong to speaker or scribe.
It belongs to the hearing.
It started not with a speech, but with a pause.
In the southern grove of the Root-Relearners, Yemra gathered with a circle of Amended—those who had once erased themselves, then stitched their essence back together through shared narrative.
One by one, they offered words that were not theirs, but had passed through them.
"I heard this in a dream I did not own."
"This line came from a wound I no longer feel."
"I speak this on behalf of a silence that fed me."
None of them claimed authorship.
