The Infinity Realm changed subtly after the battle—a lowered hum in the hourglass, a slower fall of sand, as if the cosmos had exhaled and chosen to watch. The Council’s watchers were more present now: silent lenses threaded into the Weave, pale constructs of statutes and law that recorded breath and heartbeat as evidence. But laws did not raise children. Hands did.
Vishvanatham carried Anantara into the training sanctum—an old wing of the Weave repurposed into rooms of motion, meditation, and raw practice. The Council allowed a narrow program: supervised apprenticeship. That meant two things: monitors and margins. The monitors were cold glass and the margins were the length of the leash.
Anantara’s eyes took everything in. The sanctum was half-library, half-dojo: walls of chronal texts,
