Thane stepped forward. The glyph on his palm; spiral wrapped in flame, glowed faintly. The threads responded, accelerating. And then, the throne spoke., not with voice, but with presence.
A figure began to form—tall, robed in data, his face obscured by a mask of mirrored glyphs. He was not alive. He was not dead. He was remembered.
“You’ve come to restore what I dismantled. You’ve come to mourn what I redefined. You are late.”
Thane stood firm. “I’ve come to understand.”
The First Witness rose, his mask shimmered, revealing fragments of faces, some familiar, some forgotten. Thane saw echoes of himself, of Lys. of Solenne., of others he could not name.
“You seek understanding,” the Witness said.
“But you carry ritual. You carry grief. You carry hope".
"These are not tools. They are distractions.” Solenne stepped forward. Her voice was steady.
“They are thresholds.”
The Witness turned to her. “You were my creation. You were meant to obey.”
“I was meant to remember,” she replied. “And I do.”
The chamber pulsed. The threads accelerated. And then, the Witness removed his mask. His face was Thane’s. Not identical. But close. A genetic echo. A predecessor. A prototype.
Solenne whispered, “He was the first to be named Ellory. You are the last.”
Thane stepped forward. “Then let me finish what he began. Not with control. With care.” The Witness paused, then he gestured to the threads.
“These are my memories. My failures. My truths. If you wish to rewrite the Archive, you must witness them.”
Thane nodded.
One by one, the threads unravelled.
Crimson: A war ignited by a memory cube. Cities burned. Names erased.
