Aether could not shake the feeling. Long after the vision had faded, long after the Living Memory had folded itself back into silence, the image remained lodged behind his eyes like a splinter of glass too fine to see and too sharp to ignore. The Empty Seat. The figure seated in it, faceless, still, waiting. He knew that shape. He was certain of it, the way one is certain of a name on the tip of the tongue, close enough to taste but never close enough to speak.
The Living Memory would not let him rest. Again and again it drew him back to that same frozen moment, replaying it not as a memory but as an invitation, each pass revealing something new, as though the vision itself were slowly deciding how much it could trust him.
