Location:Empire Borderlands → Virescent Expanse
Date/Time:TC1854.03.18 - TC1854.04.01
Seven Peaks disappeared behind them in the first hour.
Not gradually — the mountain was there, enormous and alive with formation light and Sylvara's canopy catching the dawn, and then the sky-surfing blade carried them over a ridge, and it was gone. Replaced by farmland. By distance. By the particular emptiness of a sky that contained only two people and the wind between them.
Raven didn't look back.
She'd considered it — one final glance at the mountain, at the living architecture, at the garden where Elian would be waking up and reaching for her hand and finding empty air. But looking back was a habit she'd broken across ninety-eight lifetimes. You looked forward. You moved forward. You trusted that what you'd built would stand because you'd built it to stand, and if it couldn't stand without you watching, then you'd built it wrong.
