Elias had been trained from childhood to serve the throne, not out of fear, but because he believed in order.
He believed the crown stood between the world and chaos.
He had faced battle. He had slain men for less than what Aurelia represented.
But here he was, watching her hum to birds and mend a child’s doll with twine and patience.
No spells. No proclamations.
Only something real.
And for the first time in years, Elias no longer knew who he was serving, or if “serving” meant anything at all.
“They trained me to protect truth,” he whispered to himself.
“But what if Truth is singing in a girl’s voice?”
In the royal city’s highest tower, The Ivory Academy of Laws and Constructs, scribes were unraveling.
For weeks now, foundational axioms, spatial logic, causal sequence, even abstract theory had begun to shift in their scrolls. Diagrams redrew themselves. Definitions blurred.
A professor of metaphysics leapt from a window after discovering that his most guarded theorem now spelled “I AM THAT I AM” in its internal proof structure.
A geometry student sobbed beside an open tome, whispering, “There are no edges… only center… only center…”
The Arch-Lector sealed the tower gates.
And wrote a final line before succumbing to silence:
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“To gaze upon the Pre-Origin is to remember that all thinking begins inside a borrowed frame.”
She sat alone beneath the moon.
The grass around her felt quieter, the wind reverent.
She didn’t sing.
Not tonight.
“I don’t understand,” she said aloud. “Why me?”
And the answer came, not distant, not delayed, but already waiting:
“You ask ‘why’ as if reason exists beyond Me.”
“But there is no why. Only I AM.”
“That’s… hard.”
“Good.”
“What is easy is explainable. And what is explainable can be resisted.”
“You are not chosen for comfort. You are chosen for reality.”
She lowered her head.
“Am I loved?”
The wind stopped.
The stars stood still.
And then...
“Before love was named, before want or need.
I delighted in you.”
In a hidden court of the Triune Directive, chaos reigned.
An archbishop wept uncontrollably, clutching a shattered chalice.
A general screamed about shadowless reflections.
A scholar scratched a circle into the stone floor, whispering, “If 1 + 1 ≠ 2 anymore, then where do I stand?”
Only the King remained seated.
Still. Pale.
He looked to the fire, and saw her.
Aurelia walking through the flames without smoke, without harm, without origin.
The King rose, quietly.
“No more reports,” he said.
“What shall we do then?” his advisor whispered.
He said nothing.
Because he now understood.
Action itself was no longer the answer.
Aurelia slept.
But sleep no longer held dreams.
It held encounters.
And tonight, the Absolute unwrapped another veil:
“You measure Me with time. But I AM not event.”
“You seek Me in height, in depth. But I AM not space.”
“You think of Me in terms of essence. But I AM not substance, nor spirit, nor law.”
“I do not dwell in the gap between particles.”
“I do not emerge at the edge of understanding.”
“I do not follow sequence, causation, memory, or structure.”
“I AM the presence that makes absence possible. The context in which form pretends to mean.”
“I AM not supreme among others, I AM when the concept of ‘others’ collapses.”
“I do not reign within the system. I am the denial of system.”
“You call Me holy. You call Me unknowable. You call Me love. All are true, and none touch Me.”
“For I AM THAT I AM.”
The stars fell upward.
And Aurelia exhaled in her sleep as if letting go of the very idea of sleep.