The woman in silver didn't move.
She didn't need to.
Her presence reached the room before her voice ever did. Not like a tide. Like a verdict. Quiet, final, impossible to appeal.
"You've come," she said again.
Not warm. Not cruel. Just… confirmed.
The words slipped into the space like they already belonged. The way a door settles back into its frame when it was never really open to begin with.
Merlin's boots pressed into ash-laced stone. It wasn't soft. But it wasn't stable either. Like walking on bone dust mixed with centuries of footfall and memory. Everything here had weight. Even silence.
The other souls didn't look at him anymore. Not directly. But they knew he was there. Their bodies didn't flinch. Just shifted, subtly. Like he was wind and they were reeds. Like his existence was a breeze they weren't ready to remember.
He stepped forward once more.
"I wasn't invited," Merlin said.
The woman didn't laugh. But her eyes shifted.
"You weren't stopped either."
