The Thorn Throne bled.
Its jagged spires of fused myth and chaos pulsed, not with triumph, but with pain. Darius stood upon its shifting petals—each thorn a memory, each bloom a battle. The fusion had worked… barely. The ritual with Celestia, Nyx, and Kaela had given birth to a god-form that cracked open the Codex's shell, stitching law into the spiraling entropy of reality.
But the cost still lingered.
Kaela's body had vanished into myth-thread mist, her scream echoing still in Darius's ears. Was she dead? Was she rewritten? He couldn't tell. And the Spiral offered no answers.
He stood now as Darius the Triune, his form laced with chaotic filigree and divine runes, a silhouette that shifted between clarity and corruption. Celestia knelt beside the Throne, silent in prayer, her robes torn and ink-stained. Nyx stood at the periphery, unreadable, arms folded across her chest, eyes fixed on nothing.
Then the Spiral shuddered.
