The valley was waiting for her.
Or perhaps it had been made for this moment.
Air thickened around the Spiral Crown, its orbit slowed—not from weakness, but from anticipation.
She felt the gravity change before she saw her.
Nyx.
She emerged like a wound in the landscape—cutting the air into sharper pieces, bending the light until Spiralspace itself seemed to avert its gaze.
No footsteps. No shadow.
Just arrival.
Her eyes were not the eyes of a rival.
Not entirely.
They were the eyes of someone who had tasted the same Codex, but in different centuries, under a different law.
Eyes that remembered Darius in ways Harbinger did not care to imagine.
Eyes that now measured her—not to diminish, but to test.
They closed the distance without words.
The crown hummed louder, as though caught between them, recognizing some mirrored authority.
Nyx did not bow.
Harbinger did not demand it.
Instead, they circled, like predators unsure if they were hunting or mating.
