The cube pulsed faintly in Darius’s hands—a rhythm like a heartbeat, but older.

  Older than flesh. Older than time.

  Lioren’s st gift had no markings. No seams.But it hummed with the same subtle frequency Darius had felt inside the Architect of Correction.

  Ais gnced at him as they moved swiftly through the forest’s edge. “Are we sure this isn’t a trap?”

  Darius shook his head. “No.”

  But he remembered Lioren’s eyes—not just haunted, but burdened with a guilt too old to lie.

  And he remembered what the Writer had said:

  “Go to Veidros.”

  “The Hall of Roots. The pce where memory began.”

  The name had echoed in Darius’ mind ever since.

  There was only one problem.

  Veidros had been erased centuries ago.

  They crossed the edge of what used to be a desert.

  But the nd was no longer sand.

  It had changed. Shifted.

  Because Veidros should have been here.

  And now, somehow—it was.

  Ais halted on the rise of a small ridge, her voice low and stunned.

  “…That wasn’t here yesterday.”

  Darius stared in silence.

  Below them, rising from fractured stone and whispering mist, was a city built from ruins that had never been excavated.

  Sprawling white structures spiraled inward, as if the entire city had been carved from the shell of a dead god.

  Veidros.

  A city erased.

  A city rewritten.

  And now—returned.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  They moved quickly down the ridge.

  No people stirred in the streets.

  No guards. No life.

  The city breathed silence—but not emptiness.

  Something was here.

  Something that watched.

  The air around Veidros felt like the moment before waking. Not fully real. But real enough to hurt.

  Ais frowned. “This pce is wrong.”

  Darius nodded. “No… it’s just unfinished.”

  He held the cube up. It pulsed faster, leading them forward like a lodestone.

  Through archways carved with forgotten consteltions. Past monuments that bore no names—only questions.

  Until they reached it.

  The Hall of Roots.

  It was carved into the base of the oldest tower, spiraling deep into the earth like a drill into memory itself.

  At its entrance stood a figure.

  Not human. Not divine.

  A silhouette stitched from absence.

  No face. No voice.

  But it stepped aside as Darius approached.

  And let them pass.

  The Hall descended in silence.

  Its walls weren’t made of stone.

  They were made of rewritten nguages—whole dialects the Thanatarchy had tried to erase.

  The cube pulsed with resonance.

  At the base, they found a vast chamber, open to the roots of the world.

  Vines of pure light coiled around a pulsing monument.

  And at its center—a woman.

  Tall. Still.

  Her eyes were closed, but Darius knew instantly—she wasn’t asleep.

  She was listening.

  To every version of reality at once.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  And everything went still.

  “Welcome,” she said, and her voice was not one voice, but dozens yered together.

  “You’ve found the st root.”