The air shifted after the terrifying words of the Living Origin.
And Sigrid...
She turned, her white-gold robes whispering against the floor, and stared at him with eyes that carried no warmth.
"If anything happens to this re Fold Dweller..." Her voice was calm. Too calm. "I will end my own beginning."
BOOM!
The words hung in the air like a blade suspended above a beating heart.
"And you will be responsible for the collapse of the prize of Living Origins."
Altheon paled. His golden glow dimd. The sharp lines of pride carved across his expression cracked.
"I..." His jaw pulsed, wings trembling. "I apologize."
A silence followed. Uncomfortable and bitter.
Sigrid raised a single hand. "Do not disturb us."
White-gold light poured from her fingers, forming a do of sanctified brilliance that severed them from the rest of the domain. The light dimd the mont it enclosed them, wrapping the pair in sothing quieter than silence.
Noah remained still.
He watched as her gaze fell to the rune above his head. She regarded it with a sadness he did not yet understand.
"I’ve...inadvertently marked you," she murmured. "For that...I apologize."
He shook his head slowly, the motion smooth, devoid of conflict.
"Sigrid," he said quietly, "are you alright?"
Her eyes- once so powerful, once so veiled- wavered.
And then, unexpectedly, she smiled. A curve of lips that carried sorrow more than mirth.
"Tell sothing." Her voice was softer now. "Are you a good... entity? A good person?"
Her question ca without artifice. It was not a judgnt. It was a need. A wish.
Noah stared at her. The stillness of his soul did not break.
"No," he answered, unblinking. "I am not a good person."
Her eyes dimd at such an answer.
But he was not done!
"I am also not a bad person," he continued. "I am simply myself."
He spoke as if stating the weather.
"Noah Osmont. Quintessential."
Sigrid’s gaze held him for several seconds longer. As if searching him for sothing she could not na. When she finally exhaled, her breath trembled.
"I want to say I’ve dragged you into sothing unfathomably ssy..." she said, voice tight, "but your presence, your being, is just as unusual. For you to awaken what I shattered, what I sealed..."
She looked down. Her fingers flexed as she shook her head.
"To prepare you for what’s to co," she whispered, "you must understand what ca before."
...!
Her hand rose. Light blood in her palm.
A small orb of radiant white brilliance hovered there- alive with weavings of power, each thread humming with sacred rembrance.
A record.
A grand one.
Noah reached out and took it, the light slipping into him like water eting stillness.
And in his mind...a sea unfolded.
—
White.
Endless.
An ocean of Living Origin Authority, pure and unwavering.
Within this sea, there floated a woman.
Unfathomably beautiful.
Her features bore the serenity of dawn. Her white robes clung like clouds around her form, her hair like a veil of sanctity flowing down her back.
Around her, trees.
Massive, sacred white trees stretched across the sea like veins and the size of dozens of Wheels.
On their branches rested Transcendent Wheels of Existence, turning slowly like clockwork made from purpose itself.
She was not alone in this white sea.
Tens of Thousands of figures floated around her, each one radiating imnse power.
Living Origins.
All of them watched her in silence.
Their eyes were not cruel.
But they were filled with sothing worse.
Purpose.
The woman turned, frowning gently. She knew them all. They were her family. Her lineage. All born of the White Living Origin. Her roots.
But sothing was wrong.
Their eyes didn’t see her.
They saw what she would beco.
A man drifted forward, his form regal, his wings of light folded behind his back.
"Daughter," he said, love and sorrow in equal asure on his face. "The catalyst has been found. It is ti."
She blinked, a chill brushing her spine.
"The catalyst?" Her voice held caution. "The Royal Origins have been searching too aggressively. I don’t trust their judgnt."
Her father shook his head. "They, we...are doing everything for a reason."
She narrowed her eyes. "A reason?"
"For our beginning."
He drifted closer, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Through you... we will reclaim it. You are the seed. Through you, Order shall be awakened again."
Her heart skipped.
"Order?"
He nodded. "The Royal Origins have seen all outcos. There is only one catalyst that awakens the Remnant of Order sleeping inside you."
She stepped back. "What is it?"
Her father’s eyes glowed.
"An ending of your entire line... flowing through your beginning."
His voice deepened, as if reciting an ancient rite.
"You must inherit our beginnings, Little Bundle. The beginnings of our entire Lineage."
A tremor of dread shook her limbs.
"That’s...madness. Who offered such a solution?!"
"Order," her father shook her head and whispered, "cos from endings. From chaos. From destruction, if it is guided and complete. Its destruction all those years ago by THE Living Paradox was only a matter of nature, a prerequisite before it was instituted again. Order was always ant to return from that destruction."
HUUM!
His voice beca low and reverent.
"And we will guide it."
"No...!" she whispered.
She turned. Her feet drifted toward two figures in the distance- her mother and her twin.
Her sister!
Her mother smiled.
Warm.
Knowing.
"Mother... please," she said. "You don’t have to listen to them. You don’t belong to the Royal Origins!"
Her mother stepped forward and cupped her cheek.
"No one controls us."
"Then why?!"
Her mother’s voice wavered.
"We do it for you. My Bundle of Purpose."
The words tore sothing open inside her.
Her father joined them.
"We hope you don’t resent us. Nor should you resent anyone else. We give you everything. Our everything. Our purpose."
...!
He smiled gently.
"We give you our beginnings."
And then...
He turned to the others and beca serious. Heavy. Luminous!
"Give your heart."
BOOM!
"Give your purpose!"
BOOM!
"Give... your beginning, your everything to usher in the glorious rise of Order!"
BOOM!
The sea skyspace caught fire.
Tens of thousands of Living Origins combusted into white flas. Their beginnings torn from their chests like stars ripped from constellations.
The flas flew toward her.
She scread.
"No!"
They did not stop.
Her mother. Her father. Her aunts and uncles. Her cousins. Her ntors.
All of them. Even Pri Living Origins. A few... even Honored.
All burning.
Their sacred origins unraveling into her.
Into the endless hole inside her.
It devoured everything.
And she hated it.
"No!"
She reached for her mother’s face as it cracked into light.
Her hand passed through air.
Her mother smiled as her flas joined the rest.
She turned to her twin sister.
The last.
The only.
Their eyes locked.
Pain.
Hesitation.
Love.
And a semblance of fear that told her...she truly did not want to do this. So why did she?!
BOOM!
And her sister, too, began to burn.
Sigrid scread.
"STOP!"
But no one listened.
And when the final fla filled her...
There was only one thing.
Silence.
Her sobs echoed in a white void.
Her weavings fractured.
Her lineage ended.
And she remained.
The Bundle of Purpose.
The endless hole inside of her...finally fulfilled when it held the beginnings of her entire lineage!
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