The flood had settled, and Achilles did not trust how quiet everything was.
Below him, the seas of Tian had become something that did not belong to any memory he had of them.
The gold was still there, folded under everything like a promise that refused to die, but it had been married to white. White-gold. Neither one nor the other.
He watched it for a long time.
Pillars of liquid stood upright across the sea's surface, tall as mountains. Archean currents coiled around their bases in lazy spirals, and every so often one of the pillars would pulse, softly, from root to tip, as if remembering how to breathe.
This was not Tian, not anymore!
It was the Tian that had Persevered.
Behind him, Rose and THE Watcher floated in the hush. Rose had been changed by the flood the way everyone who survived had been changed, her fire running deeper, her green burning closer to something molten, her Chaos Claim steadier than it had any right to be after what they had just walked through.
