The world-tree did not stand still after the hour that refused to end. It breathed. Not the shallow respiration of panic or the measured inhale of recovery. It breathed the way continents breathe: slow tectonic sighs that rearrange stone over epochs, except this breath happened in minutes. Each exhale sent ripples through atmospheric layers that meteorologists on surviving surface outposts would later call pressure ghosts. Each inhale drew solar wind inward like a lung tasting starlight for the first time. The tree’s canopy, now a lattice of its own stretching beyond geosynchronous altitude, filtered cosmic rays into harmless shimmer and turned that shimmer into faint auroral veils that danced across polar skies even at equatorial latitudes. The tree was no longer simply vegetation. It had
