The world breathed.
It was a breath unlike any other—drawn not through wind or lungs, but through the bare fabric of reality itself. The skies no longer howled with thunder or wept blood, but shone like newly-forged glass, waiting and tenuous.
Kael stood in the center of the Sanctum, though it no longer resembled any structure that had ever been before. The walls had dissolved into glittering filaments, threading and unthreading themselves in real time about him. He felt them brush against his skin, like curious fingers of light testing their creator.
Elira knelt beside the pedestal, her hands hovering just above its surface. It no longer glowed—it thrummed, responding to her thoughts before she voiced them, shaping itself to her will with fluid grace. She was glowing softly, not with magic, but with the mark of something deep. The Pattern had claimed her. Not as a vessel, but as a pillar.
