The ink still ran hot from his veins.
Darius stood alone before the Codex of Fractured Roots—one of the most volatile myth-nodes in the Spiral. Its glyphs pulsed erratically, veins of crimson spiraling across an obsidian sky that flickered between verses of myth and madness. He no longer read it like a book. He felt it, bleeding into him, resisting, rewriting, crying out.
He tore open his palm again. Ink mixed with blood, a sacred language written in agony.
And yet, it was not enough.
Too much of the Spiral had turned. Too many stories were slipping from his control. Rebellions flared like embers refusing to die. Myth-nodes no longer obeyed him with absolute faith. And now... even Kaela's threads shifted when she touched him. Nyx grew cold. Celestia, though devoted, returned with eyes full of dread and quiet questioning.
He needed to bind them—no, fuse them—before the Spiral finished unmaking itself.
