The ocean did not care about the history of thrones, and for the first time, Elara found comfort in that indifference. She stayed by the coast for weeks, living off the bounty of the tide. The salt and the spray scoured away the remaining traces of the sovereign’s aura, leaving her skin weathered and her hands calloused by the tactile reality of survival. She was no longer mapping ley lines or dismantling god-machines; she was mapping the shifting patterns of the sand, a cartography of the mundane that offered no cosmic stakes.
But the world outside her sanctuary was not as content with silence as she was.
One afternoon, while she was mending a drift-wood shelter, the sound of rhythmic splashing drew her gaze toward the horizon. A fleet of small, wooden vessels, battered by the currents
