INTERLUDE: Anomaly in Motion

  Leylines paused. Not violently. Not alarmingly. Just… hesitated. Roots quivered. Leaves held their breath.

  ArchDruid Faelindra felt it through the living stone. Fingers curling, eyes calm yet all-seeing, she traced the anomaly’s choice: observe, allow, contain nothing. The forest whispered: no fire, no fracture, no outrage.

  Far south, Chancellor Dareth stood amid flame-lit steel and ash-stained stone. By the Empress’ will… ashes take me. Holographic ley-screens glimmered with unclassified patterns bending rules without breaking them. Every pulse logged. Ashes be damned if we ignore it.

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  Heartwood exhaled in sympathetic rhythm. Mana threads synced with a faint pulse, sparks flickering in recognition. Observation first. Containment, maybe later.

  Across the realm, the Crossroads noted the anomaly—not threat, not disaster—but pending understanding. Every faction felt it: the Rooted, the Flamebound, the watchers. The world paused… and waited.

  Deep in the Northward Forest, a Phoenix stirred. Unaware, unclassified, unstoppable.

  And the world had already begun counting the wake it would leave behind.

  —R. Cindralis