The ring of flame hovered above the table.
Not demanding. Not speaking.
Just present.
Zeraphine reached toward it without fear. Her fingers passed into its center—not burned, not halted, but gently moved aside. Like stepping into warm rain. Her breath hitched.
"Kye," she whispered, "it's feeling us."
He didn't move yet. He just watched.
The flame had ceased being Chronicle. It no longer stored memory.
It shared it.
> ARTICLE SIXTY-FIVE: Some memory isn't preserved—it becomes direction.
The table beside them shimmered.
Not with new carvings or sudden images. Just a slow emergence of resonance: the shape of two seats pulled slightly forward. The subtle lean of the bowl toward them.
The Cathedral was giving them not a legacy.
A vector.
Kye stepped closer and placed his hand beside Zeraphine's. The flame rippled once and split—not broken, but mirrored. A second loop formed and interlocked with the first.
Two circles.
No origin.
No hierarchy.
A rhythm.
The lights within the structure brightened.
From nowhere and everywhere, voices—not verbal, but emotional—gathered in tone.
They heard laughter from someone who had survived.
They heard a lullaby meant to carry a generation that never was.
They heard silence held for those who were not allowed to speak.
The Cathedral began to close—not like a door, but like breath at the end of an exhale.
Not loss.
Readiness.
The Chronicle flame turned once.
And folded itself inward.
Into their shared shape.
Zeraphine gasped.
Kye steadied her. "It's not leaving. It's becoming."
She looked down.
Beneath the table, a third seat had formed.
Not for a person.
For the memory itself.
To always have a place.
They understood then: the deep did not end in silence.
It ended in transmission.
They were being returned.
Not with answers.
But with presence carried forward.
Driftroot, far above, felt the shift.
The Vaultseed trembled.
In the silent corridor, the sapling tilted again.
Back toward light.
And the memory of the Shroud, now held in two living forms, began to rise.