Across THE Braneworld, in a contested sky half golden grid and half blooming blue farmland, Noah finished his studying.
He had spent the fight learning THE Aureate Firmament the way he learned everything, patiently, letting THE Mirror That Keeps drink in its architecture while his Intent held the stalemate. And what all that study had revealed, in the end, was almost disappointing. The Pantheon was genuinely grand. The being it stemmed from was not.
Vularch Sethis had a weak foundation. It sounded absurd to say of a Mesozoic Scale Ealdor, and it was true all the same. He had climbed Vakochev's Scales the way everyone climbed them, along the prescribed road, his Irrefutability achieved by the book and his Pantheon raised from the standard blueprint, a fine house built from plans ten thousand others had used.
