The morning that followed the collapse of the Archive of the Real was the first
time in one hundred and forty-one chapters that the air of the North felt truly,
unequivocally clean. There was no lingering scent of sulfur, no metallic
aftertaste of silver poisoning, and no suffocating aroma of the High Queen's
lilies. The atmosphere was a sharp, biting cocktail of frozen pine, damp earth,
and the faint, sweet musk of the Dawn-Lilies that were beginning to push through
the obsidian dust once more.
I stood on the highest balcony of the Obsidian Peak, my hands resting on the
cold granite railing. The "Real" world had returned, and with it, the weight of
my own physical form. My joints ached with a human fatigue, and my lungs felt
the thinness of the high-altitude air. My hair, once the shimmering white of a
goddess, remained a deep, lustrous black—a river of midnight that reached past
my waist. The silver names of the ten thousand were still etched into my skin,
