Dawn crept across the ridges like a hesitant apology. Adams walked the narrow path alone at first, boots crunching on loose gravel, the cool mist clinging to his skin. The sect lay behind him, its lights still flickering in the distance like a constellation he had arranged himself. He needed this stretch of quiet. The echo from the Forest had left a taste in his mouth — not fear, but the faint metallic tang of something old waking up.
He thought of the Oblivion War again. How the sky had torn open and the old gods had poured through, desperate and furious, only to break against him like waves on stone. Zeus with his thunder, Hades with his shadows, Odin with his ravens and cunning, Loki with his tricks, Thor with his hammer — they had all come, believing their myths made them eternal. He had ended the threat. Not out of malice, but because it had been necessary. Since then, they had kept to the hidden realms, watching. Waiting. Now the impersonator was stirring them again.
