The realm had no sky. No ground. Just a vast abyss of still-burning stars that bled backwards into themselves, looping like broken clocks caught in an endless gasp. Time here wasn't still. It was unsettled. It shivered.
The Spiral stood at the edge of it all, an aura of madness bleeding into the fabric of the void. Not with rage this time. But anticipation. Its form fluctuated in rhythm with the whispers in the dark, as if it were listening to a choir that hadn't started singing yet.
Beside it, the Architect of Ruin.
Tall. Still. Dressed in black robes that clung to his body like mourning silk. His face was concealed behind a cracked porcelain mask, and his arms were folded calmly behind him, as if standing at a funeral he had hosted.
And floating between them, suspended in a sphere of folded starlight and shadow, was Aurora.
