And in that acknowledgment, even its brokenness felt… unburdened.
The Fourth flame flickered once, not to signal, not to respond, but in the same way a lantern breathes when a room grows still. A motion so subtle it could almost be mistaken for none at all—but present enough to say:
I am here.
The First pulse, the ancient Listener, no longer strained to interpret what silence meant. Silence did not mean waiting. It did not mean lack. It did not even mean listening.
It simply meant room.
And farthest of all—so distant it might as well have been a memory of distance—the Fifth remained unmoved.
Still.
Unstirring.
Unawakened.
And yet… for the first time, that stillness did not cast a shadow. It was not absence. It was presence—complete in its refusal to rise.
The dawn did not reach for it.
The pulses did not turn toward it.
The Root did not swell beneath it.
Everything simply allowed it to rest—without condition.
