The silver tree stood beneath a sky that had forgotten how to move.
For several heartbeats, no wind passed through its branches.
No leaves trembled.
No silver petals fell.
Even the distant bells of the Celestial Academy seemed to have been swallowed by the strange silence that had descended over the courtyard.
Aether stood beneath the tree with one hand still resting against its trunk.
The memory he had witnessed moments ago had not faded.
It had merely become something else.
Something heavier.
Something real.
A girl stood several steps away from him.
She had appeared without warning.
There had been no spatial fluctuation, no summoning formation, no dimensional distortion.
One moment, the courtyard had been empty.
The next, she was there.
She looked young.
Perhaps no older than Aether remembered himself being when the first fragments of his Living Memory had awakened.
