The moment Anna chose, the world answered.
Not with thunder.
With silence so complete it erased sound itself.
The fractures froze mid-expansion. The screaming artefact—the Threnody Heart—went utterly still in her hands, its breath caught between pulses as if the universe itself were waiting to see whether it was still allowed to continue.
Anna felt it then.
Not power.
Authority.
The Third Force recoiled—not retreating, not obeying, but recalculating.
Reality shuddered.
Time staggered sideways.
Somewhere far away, a child dropped a cup that shattered before it hit the ground. A tower rebuilt itself with different stones. A dead god inhaled for the first time in centuries.
Lexus shouted her name—but the sound reached her late, stretched thin like it had to cross too many versions
