CHAPTER I*

The throne was not built.

It accumulated.

Bone by bone. Body by body. Age by age.

What could not endure was buried beneath what would.

At its center, one remained seated. Not preserved. Not spared. Claimed.

Flesh bound to what came before. Surrounded by the dead, yet unmoved by them. The blade was not raised in defiance. It was planted in certainty. Violence had already passed. This was what followed.

Above, the light did not shine.

It fractured.

An eclipse burned where a crown should have been, blinding not the eyes, but the past. Wings rose on either side. Not to lift the figure away, but to seal what stood beneath them. Escape was never the point. Permanence was.

Those who came before were not enemies.

They were proof.

Their forms pressed into the throne, fused into the foundation, reduced to structure. Nothing was wasted. Nothing was erased. Every failure remained present, carrying weight.

This was not rebirth.

This was refusal.

Refusal to dissolve.

Refusal to fade.

Refusal to end.

What stands here does not seek mercy.

What remains here does not collapse.

We are forever.