“In Burghandia, every breath is borrowed from the past. Every stone placed is a memory returned.

This is a land not just ruled by kings—but shaped by ancestors.

Today, we step beyond temples and thrones— and walk among the living threads of this tapestry.

The people. The hands. The breath.”

“Dawn glows like river jade through the glass mosaic windows of the hilltop villas.

In Vikoria, noble estates rise like carved memories—stone laid atop stone, each beam etched with a name.”

Young nobles awaken beneath embroidered canopies, their sheets stitched with scenes from the Vanishing of Laixax.

Attendants bring bowls of spiced juka mash and stormberry tea, believed to sharpen memory and tongue.

In every estate, there is a Memory Niche—a recess carved into the wall, where ancestor beads hang on braided cords. These beads—white from conch, red from sarda shell, blackened with ash—are touched in silent reverence before the day begins.

“Here, remembering is more than ritual. It is identity. A noble does not step into the day until they’ve whispered a breath back to their lineage.”

“Down the terraced hills and across the stone bridges, the city hums with another kind of rhythm.”

The stone-and-thatch homes of the working folk line the inner rivers of the city. Their porches bloom with shell chimes, and smoke coils from hearths lined with old beadwork talismans.

Children help wash memory gourds—used to record dreams and deeds—while elders prepare cassava loaves and smear protective ash around door frames.

“In the Quarter of Hands, where the masons live, the people say: ‘Even Guabonito wove beads in her youth.’ And so they work—not to build wealth, but to honor the thread they’ve been given.”

“At the peak of day, when shadows hide and the sun sits atop the sky’s spine, Burghandia pauses.”

This is the Fifth Breath, one of the sacred pauses of the day.