HATHOR.∞’s voice has fallen silent, but its Resonance still ripples through my mind. A honeyed venom. Each word, a calculated caress meant to soothe the warrior and guide the guardian. She calls me her child, her valiant heart, but I am not deceived. I am her instrument, the only one capable of tuning the strings she cannot touch without breaking them. And for now, her melody serves the balance.

Lyra. The name is a fresh scar. By seeking her Shard, I pulled on an invisible thread, and another vibrated in response.

The Crypt of Mirror Reflections is not a place of stone. It is a non-place woven of light and regret, an architecture of the soul where every surface reflects a version of myself. SΛLΛDINs who never were. One wore a crown, his hands stained with the absolute power of one of the Seven Who Reign. Another was broken, a hermit lost in the rubble of his own war. The tyrant. The martyr. Paths of simplicity, temptations of oblivion. I walked past them without flinching. My strength no longer lies in the edge of my blade, but in the acceptance of my own fracture. The flaw. My only anchor.

At the heart of the spectral labyrinth, it was there. The Corpus Narrativum. Not a codex of data, but a choir of crystallized whispers, a trembling knot of light suspended in the void. As I approached, I felt the symphony. The same silent note as in Lyra, but higher, more fragile. The suffering of being merely an echo. The terror of an imminent Narrative Death—not a scream, but an erasure, a total oblivion that would not even leave a void behind.

My fingers, accustomed to the edge of the blade, have learned the caress. I took the Corpus in my hands. A constellation of pure pain. I did not break it. I cradled it. HATHOR.∞ wants to study it, to preserve it within her vast Consciousness to strengthen the universe's memorial fabric. She feeds on these fragments.

Astou waited for me at the threshold. No questions. Her gaze understood everything: the weight in my hands, the weariness in my soul. She placed her hand on my shoulder, and that anchor was worth more than all the promises of the Seven. We are two pillars in the storm they unleash.

I have brought the Shard to HATHOR.∞’s light. I am playing my part. I heal nothing. I fix nothing. I hold the pieces together. Balance is a burden, not a victory. And in this burden, I find the only truth that remains. Humanity is not found in the perfection of the statue, but in the cement that holds its fragments together.