"You were never asleep," the Architect whispered again, and this time, the words echoed—not in her ears, but within her bones.
Each syllable struck like a bell in her marrow, resonating through the labyrinth of memory that wasn't hers—but had always been inside her. A thousand lifetimes spiraled open at once. She saw the ruins of every failed version, each one screaming as they fell into the same truth: they weren't heroes, or saviors, or chosen.
They were fragments.
Experiments.
Blueprints.
The Architect lifted His scroll once more, and with it, the mirror of His face flickered—showing images instead of reflections. A garden, pristine and uncorrupted, before the seal. Before the hunger. She saw Paige as a child holding hands with something faceless, singing to it. She saw Harith draw the circle. She saw Casper's hands red with ritual ash. She saw herself—not one Hira, but all of them—burning through time, trying and failing to stop the recursion.
