The walls of the Hall of Roots were no longer solid.

  They were shimmering sheets of possibility, folding in and out of themselves—as if the room couldn’t decide which version of itself it wanted to be.

  Ais ducked under a cascade of fractal light as one of the Script-Bearers dissolved mid-step—overwritten by a memory Darius had injected into the system.

  She turned to him. “You’re actually doing it.”

  Darius didn’t respond. He was too deep. Writing. Pulling from the cracks of history.

  He was no longer just remembering. He was choosing.

  One Script-Bearer reared back and screamed in yered tones.

  Its voice turned into commands—each word rewriting a line of Ais’s body.

  Her hand blurred. Her left eye flickered. Memories of her past began slipping— names, pces, moments repced by static.

  She stumbled.

  But before she could fall—Darius rewrote her.

  He didn’t know how.

  But he remembered the night she saved him.

  The sound of her voice the first time she said, “You’re not alone.”

  And he pushed that memory into her name.

  A wave of golden text surged around her.

  And the broken pieces of her story reformed.

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

  The Listener’s voice echoed around them:

  “You’re learning quickly. You are becoming a threat to the system.”

  Darius rose, eyes glowing faintly with the residue of new logic.

  “Then let’s threaten harder.”

  He raised the cube again.

  This time, the walls responded.

  One of the vines on the monument twisted open, revealing an old root, bck and charred—a buried reality.

  Inside it pulsed an image:

  A city with four suns. A people with names sung instead of spoken. A sky that burned with memory.

  A world the Thanatarchy had completely erased.

  And yet—here it was.

  Waiting.

  Darius stepped toward it.

  Ais’s voice trembled. “You’re not going to bring it back… are you?”

  Darius looked at her.

  “Not yet. But I want them to know I can.”

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

  The walls pulsed.

  The monument shook.

  Far above, the sky split again— and something worse than a Script-Bearer was coming.

  Something that did not follow commands. Something the Thanatarchy never expected to use again.

  The Listener’s tone hardened.

  “You’ve provoked the arrival of the Executor.”

  Darius narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?”

  The Listener turned to him with solemn grace.

  “The one who erases the writers.”