The world trembled at its edges. Elirion—newborn, half-formed, and stitched together from memory, will, and contradiction—shuddered beneath the assault of something ancient and inevitable.
Decay.
Threnos had no face, no mouth, yet the land spoke with his voice. Crops withered into brittle husks. Rivers turned black and stopped flowing. Statues of remembrance crumbled before they were even named.
All across Nexis, screams rose—not from wounds of flesh, but from the psychic unraveling of meaning itself.
Darius stood at the center of the sanctuary—the Heartstone of Nexis pulsing beneath his bare feet. Around him, the great spires of memory twisted and strained, their forms flickering between hope and ruin. The Codex of Gray lay in his hand, still unwritten, still waiting. A blank tome of infinite weight.
