Within that realm, the child took another step.
They did not know what they were.
They had no name, no past, no design.
But with each movement, the space around them shimmered—not from magic, but from recognition.
It wasn't the world that shaped them.
It was their steps that shaped the world.
Where their foot fell, the void held its shape a second longer.
Where their breath escaped, the air remembered it had once been part of a story.
They weren't entering the Garden.
They were rewriting the in-between.
Back in the Garden, councils began to form. Not out of fear.
Out of awe.
The Refrains built a new chamber—a Listening Hall—with acoustics designed to catch not words, but the moments between them. There, poets and memory-keepers sat silently in circles, recording silences.
Each silence was unique.
Some were heavy.
Some were pregnant.
Some were gentle as a forgotten lullaby.
But all of them bent slightly toward the east.
Toward arrival.
Elowen woke one night gasping.
