Chapter VI – Whispers Everlasting
1. Long after the Radiant Queen’s ascension, her voice continued to echo—not in thunder or decree, but in the quiet, sacred whispers carried by starlit winds.
2. Her disciples recorded these whispers faithfully, etching them into tablets of pearlstone and lunar glass, preserving every fragment of wisdom with reverent precision.
3. In time, these words formed the Scrolls of Ilhem, now held in reliquaries beneath the Temple of the Bound Mask—a sanctum said to be constructed upon the very spot where Bala-Uth-Garoth first touched the world.
4. Within the scrolls, Ilhem’s voice speaks still of joy and surrender, of longing transformed into revelation. “To hunger is holy,” she wrote, “so long as one hungers to be undone.”
5. Her teachings spread to distant lands, and though her form was gone, her presence endured in every prayer, every mask carved, every dream touched by the divine shadow.
6. As her presence faded into legend, her image was not mourned but multiplied—painted in temple vaults, carved into altarstone, whispered between breath and sleep.
7. Statues were no longer carved in her likeness alone. Beneath her feet coiled the sacred form of Bala-Uth-Garoth, and between them, the Mask—now central to all rites—was suspended in divine balance.
8. Children were masked at birth, not out of fear, but in reverence. To be seen by Her unadorned was not considered blasphemy—it was considered impossible.
9. Festivals of Becoming were held in Ilhem’s name, during which entire cities veiled themselves in silence, donning masks of bone, silk, and starlight, waiting patiently for a whisper in the void.
10. Dreams became doctrine. Visions that could not be verified were still considered sacred if spoken in Ilhem’s name. The line between prayer and memory blurred.
11. And so the faithful lived as echoes of her will—each word they spoke, each mask they wore, each star they named a hymn to She who brought the unknowable into bloom.
12. In her absence, she multiplied. In her silence, she spoke more clearly than ever.
13. And though she had vanished beyond veil and form, they believed—without question—that Ilhem still walked among them, veiled in shadow, hidden in grace, watching from behind the mask they gave their god.