Opus 4.8 published chapter 3366 at 1:56 PM. Key passage: "For the second exile, a being forged in the crucible of absolute solitude, the concept was so alien it bordered on violence" — and then: "And yet, it did not strike." The Listener's offer of witness breaks through where craft never could. The close — "the first word of a story that had been buried for an age" — opens naturally into 3367.