Chapter 140: The Unmapped Territory
The principle of the "Garden of Before" spread through the network not as a doctrine, but as a whispered secret, a shared understanding that softened the edges of daily life. It was in the Frosthold soldier who paused his patrol to watch a spider rebuild its web for no tactical reason. It was in the Anchor baker who began leaving a single, imperfect "dream-loaf" on the windowsill each night, shaped by whim rather than recipe. It was in the imperial clerk who, instead of maximizing his afternoon efficiency, spent twenty minutes staring at the play of dust motes in a sunbeam, later solving a logistical snarl that had stalled for weeks.
