The world did not close again.
The crack in the road remained after the fighting was done, a raw, breathing thing that refused to heal. Stone leaned inward but never touched. Dirt slid down its sides and vanished into a depth that swallowed sound. The air above it shivered, as if the ground were remembering pain and couldn't let go.
Rath stood at its edge long after the last scream faded.
The demon's body had burned itself away, leaving only a smear of black that soaked into the soil like ink. No bones. No ash. Just absence, and the echo of a voice that had spoken his name as though it had always owned it.
Edrin wiped his blade on his sleeve and didn't look at the crack. "That thing wasn't scouting," he said. "It wasn't hunting. It came for you."
Rath didn't deny it.
Lyessa crouched near one of the broken stones, careful not to touch the edge. Her charms lay scattered across her palm, some dulled, some cracked clean through. One had melted, metal warped like wax left too close to flame.
"This isn't a breach," she said quietly. "Not the kind I know. Breaches tear outward. They spread. This-" She swallowed. "This is focused."
The word settled between them.
Rath felt the pulse beneath his hand again, slow and deliberate, like something counting. He had felt it all his life, rising and falling without pattern, a pressure behind the ribs that never let him forget it was there. He had called it the curse because there was no other name that fit.
But curses were meant to punish.
This felt like preparation.
They moved the wagon back from the crack, wheels groaning as if reluctant to turn their backs on it. The road beyond lay quiet, fog curling low and gray, the kings' patrol long gone or already dead. No birds called. Even the insects had gone silent.
When they finally stopped, Rath sat on the step and leaned his forearms on his knees. The sword rested across his thighs, heavier now, as if it had eaten well.
Edrin watched him for a long moment. "Back there," he said. "When it spoke. You knew."
Rath stared at the dirt. "I knew it wasn't lying."
"That doesn't answer-"
"I didn't know what it was," Rath cut in. His voice was flat, controlled with effort. "I knew what it wanted."
Lyessa joined them, lowering herself carefully. "And what was that?"
Rath closed his eyes.
The memory came without asking. Not the sound of the voice, but the shape of it. how it fit against him, slid into the spaces he'd learned to keep sealed. How it didn't need to explain itself.
"Permission," he said.
Silence followed, thick and uneasy.
Edrin scoffed, too sharp. "For what?"
Rath opened his eyes. The fog had thinned just enough for him to see the road stretching ahead, cracked and uneven, disappearing into hills that didn't care who walked them.
"To come through," he said.
Lyessa's breath caught. "Through you."
He didn't correct her.
They didn't sleep. Not really. They rested in turns, eyes always drifting back to the crack, to the place where the world had torn and refused to stop bleeding. When dawn came, it brought no warmth. Just a gray light that made everything look thinner, less certain.
By midday, the crack had changed.
It was wider.
Not by much. An inch, perhaps. Enough to notice if you were watching it the way Rath was. Enough to feel, in the bones, that it hadn't been an accident.
Lyessa noticed his stare. "It's growing," she said.
"No," Rath replied. "It's following."
They left before it could do more.
The road took them east, skirting burned fields and half-abandoned villages where shrines outnumbered people. Each god had its mark, carved posts, hanging bones, painted suns and moons, but none of them felt present. The air held a waiting quality, as if something had leaned forward and forgotten to sit back.
By the second night, Rath could feel it wherever they stopped. Not the crack itself, but the pressure it left behind. Like standing too close to a cliff even after you step away.
When sleep finally dragged him under, it wasn't rest that found him.
He stood in a place without horizon, ground stretching flat and colorless in all directions. No sky, no sun. Just a pale, endless plane marked with faint lines that converged and split again, over and over, like the grain in old wood.
He knew, without knowing how, that he had been there before.
Something moved at the edge of his vision. Not approaching. Not retreating. Simply present.
"You're late," the voice said.
Rath turned.
There was no body. No shape. Just the voice, layered and calm, like many speaking through one mouth that didn't exist.
"I don't answer you," Rath said.
The voice hummed, amused. "You always do."
The ground beneath his feet shifted. Lines brightened, forming a pattern that made his chest ache to look at. He recognized it then. not from memory, but from instinct.
A seal.
Not broken. Not intact.
Waiting.
"You think the curse was laid on you," the voice continued. "That you were marked as punishment. As warning."
Rath clenched his fists. "I was marked."
"Yes," the voice agreed. "As a hinge."
The word struck harder than any blow.
The seal beneath him pulsed once, in time with the beat beneath his ribs. He staggered, pain flaring sharp and sudden, and in that pain came understanding, not complete, but enough to be dangerous.
"You're not opening the world," the voice said softly. "You are teaching it where to open."
Rath dropped to one knee. "I didn't choose this."
"No," the voice replied. "You were chosen because you wouldn't."
The seal flared brighter, lines burning white-hot, and Rath screamed-
--and woke gasping, hand clawing for his sword.
Morning light filtered through fog. The wagon stood intact. Edrin was already awake, staring at the road with a look Rath had never seen on him before.
Lyessa knelt nearby, one hand pressed to the ground, eyes wide.
"It moved," she said.
Rath followed her gaze.
The crack was no longer behind them.
It lay ahead, cut clean across the road, as if the earth itself had stepped forward to bar their way.
Not growing.
Walking.
Edrin swore under his breath. "That's not possible."
Rath stood slowly, every nerve screaming. The pressure in his chest had settled into a steady, patient thrum.
"It is," he said. "Because it's not chasing us."
Lyessa looked up at him, fear bare and unmasked. "Then what is it doing?"
Rath met her eyes.
"Waiting for me to stop running."
Rath did not answer her right away.
He stood at the front of the wagon, boots planted in the dirt, staring at the crack that now blocked the road like a deliberate insult. It was wider than it had been at dawn, its edges smoother, less violent. The tearing ugliness had given way to something almost intentional, as if the world had learned how to do this properly.
Waiting.
Edrin broke the silence first. "We turn around."
Lyessa shook her head before Rath could speak. "It will move again."
"Then we go faster," Edrin snapped. "We don't just.. walk into it."
Rath stepped closer to the crack. Cold rolled up from it in waves, raising gooseflesh along his arms. The pulse in his chest synchronized with it now, no longer separate. Not echo. Not response.
Alignment.
"It isn't a trap," Rath said. "Not the kind you're thinking of."
Edrin stared at him. "You sound very sure for someone about to walk into a hole in the world."
Rath glanced back at him. "If it wanted me dead, I'd already be there."
That didn't help.
Lyessa rose slowly, brushing dirt from her knees. Her face had gone pale, the color drained as if the crackwere pulling it from her. "Rath," she said carefully, "whatever spoke to you last night, it wasn't a demon."
"No," Rath agreed.
"Demons hunger," she continued. "They bargain, threaten, lie. That voice didn't do any of those things."
Rath looked down into the crack. The darkness no longer felt empty. It felt organized.
"It didn't need to," he said.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet, not violently, not enough to knock them down, but enough to make the wagon creak and the horses whine. Pebbles danced along the crack's edge, then slid inward and vanished without sound.
Lyessa inhaled sharply. "It's stabilizing."
Edrin swore again. "That's worse."
Rath took another step forward.
The cold intensified, but so did something else. Recognition. The pressure behind his eyes eased for the first time in years, as if a constant ache he'd learned to ignore had finally found its source.
This is wrong, a part of him whispered.
Another part, older, quieter answered: This is honest.
"Rath," Edrin said, lower now. "Whatever you think this is, you don't have to face it alone."
Rath smiled faintly. It didn't reach his eyes. "That's the problem."
The crack reacted to his nearness. Its edges flared with a dull, gray light, lines threading through stone like veins. Symbols began to surface. Faint at first, then clearer, etched not onto the rock, but into it, as if they had always been there and were only now being allowed to show.
Lyessa gasped. "Those are binding marks."
"Can you read them?" Edrin asked.
She swallowed. "Some. Not fully. They're layered. Old. Older than the kings. Older than the gods they pretend to serve."
Rath crouched and extended one hand toward the edge.
Lyessa lunged forward. "Don't-"
His fingers stopped a breath away.
The symbols flared brighter, responding not to touch, but intent. The pulse in Rath's chest surged, painful now, forcing a sharp breath from him. Images crowded his mind- fragments, impressions rather than memories.
Stone halls that weren't carved but grown. Voices speaking laws into being. A door standing alone in a place where direction had no meaning.
And a choice.
Always a choice.
Rath withdrew his hand, shaking.
Edrin steadied him without thinking, grip firm on his arm. "What did you see?"
Rath straightened slowly. "This was never meant to open on its own."
Lyessa frowned. "Then how?"
"It needs a key," Rath said.
The word hung heavy.
"No," Edrin said immediately. "Absolutely not."
Rath met his gaze. "I'm already turning the lock just by standing here."
The crack widened another inch.
They felt it this time, felt the world adjust around it. The air thickened. The fog pressed inward, drawn toward the opening like breath pulled into waiting lungs. Far off, something howled. Not a demon's cry, but something deeper, more resonant.
Lyessa clutched one of her remaining charms as it vibrated violently. "Rath," she whispered, "whatever is on the other side, if you open this-"
"I know," he said.
"No," she replied, eyes wet but unflinching. "You don't. Because if this door walks, if it follows you- then it won't stop at you. It will learn the world by watching you move through it."
That landed harder than the voice had.
Rath looked at the road ahead, then back at the crack, then at the two people who had chosen to stand beside him when running would have been easier.
"I won't let it use you," he said.
Edrin barked a humorless laugh. "That's comforting. How?"
Rath didn't answer.
He stepped forward instead.
The moment his boot crossed the crack's edge, the world lurched.
Not collapsing, reorienting.
The road behind them stretched longer than it should have. The sky dimmed, colors draining toward gray. The crack flared, symbols burning bright enough to cast shadows, and Rath felt something inside him click into place with a finality that stole his breath.
Pain tore through his chest, white-hot and precise. He dropped to one knee, gasping, vision blurring as the pulse beneath his ribs became a roar.
Lyessa screamed his name.
Edrin drew his sword, turning in a tight circle. "Something's coming--"
The voice returned.
Not inside Rath's head this time.
Everywhere.
"Well done," it said gently.
The air warped, folding inward toward the crack. Shapes moved within it- suggestions of form rather than bodies, outlines that refused to settle. Not demons. Not yet.
Rath forced himself upright, blood running freely from his nose now, warm against his lips. "You said I was a hinge."
"Yes."
"What happens when a hinge breaks?" Rath demanded.
A pause.
Then, softly: "The door falls."
The crack surged wider, light spilling upward like a rising tide. The ground trembled harder now, cracks spiderwebbing outward from Rath's feet, racing along the road in both directions.
Edrin shouted something Rath didn't hear.
Lyessa was crying not in fear, but in fury, chanting words Rath didn't recognize as she hurled what magic she had left into the widening gap. The symbols flickered under the assault, dimming for a heartbeat.
Rath seized that moment.
He planted his feet and drove his sword into the crack. Not as a weapon, but as an anchor.
The blade screamed as it met resistance that wasn't solid, vibration shuddering up his arms and into his spine. His vision went white. Every nerve lit aflame.
"I didn't agree to this," Rath snarled through clenched teeth.
The voice laughed, not cruelly. Almost fond.
"You did," it replied. "The moment you survived."
The symbols flared again, brighter than before, and the crack began to change.
Not wider.
Deeper.
The darkness within it shifted, pulling back like a curtain, revealing not a place, but a passage.
And somewhere far below, something vast turned its attention upward.
Rath felt it notice him.
Felt it smile.
And for the first time since the curse had taken root in his bones, Rath understood the truth fully and completely:
He was not the door.
He was what came after it opened.
The smile did not belong to a face.
Rath understood that first. Whatever had noticed him did not smile the way men did, or demons, or even the gods that wore borrowed shapes to make themselves bearable. This was a shift in pressure, a subtle easing, like a hand unclenching after a long wait.
The passage beneath the crack deepened.
Not widened. Not stabilized.
Accepted.
The ground around Rath stopped shaking. The cracks froze where they were, like veins caught mid-pulse. The air grew still, so suddenly silent that his ears rang with it. Even the fog paused, suspended as if uncertain whether it was still allowed to move.
Edrin stood ten paces back, sword raised, knuckles white. Lyessa had fallen to one knee, breath coming in sharp pulls, her hands burned raw from spent wards. Both of them were staring at Rath as if he had stepped halfway out of the world.
He felt like he had.
The pain in his chest faded to a dull, controlled throb- contained now, disciplined. The roar beneath his ribs had become a steady rhythm, slower than his heartbeat but stronger, like something vast breathing beneath him.
The voice returned, quieter.
"You hear it now."
Rath swallowed. His throat was raw, scraped by words that had never been meant to pass through it. "I hear something," he said. "I don't know what it is."
"That is mercy," the voice replied. "Knowing comes later."
Rath tightened his grip on the sword hilt. The metal had gone warm, almost pliant, as if it too were listening. "You said I agreed. When?"
Another pause. Longer this time.
"When you chose to endure," the voice said. "When you did not break. When you carried the weight instead of casting it outward."
Rath laughed, short and bitter. "That wasn't a choice. That was survival."
"Yes," the voice agreed. "That is how most covenants begin."
Lyessa forced herself upright, bracing against a rock. "Rath," she called, voice hoarse. "It's not bound. Whatever this is, it's not bound to the crack anymore."
He glanced back at her. "I know."
The passage below shifted again, not expanding, but aligning- layers sliding into place like a lock finishing its turn. Rath felt it in his spine, a precise settling that made his knees nearly buckle.
Edrin took a cautious step forward. "Talk to me," he said. "What's happening?"
Rath exhaled slowly. "The door isn't opening."
Edrin frowned. "That's good."
"No," Rath said. "It already did. Long ago."
The ground beyond the crack darkened, not with shadow, but with depth. Rath could feel it now, not a place, but a state. A condition that had always existed beneath the world, waiting for something that could walk both sides without tearing apart.
Lyessa's eyes widened in dawning horror. "You're not opening it," she whispered. "You're… inheriting it."
The word landed like a verdict.
The voice did not deny it.
"You will not rule," it said calmly. "You will not command. You will not unmake what exists."
Rath's jaw clenched. "Then what do you want from me?"
"To move," the voice replied. "To choose. To bear consequence."
The fog finally moved again, creeping inward toward the crack, drawn not by force, but by gravity. It poured down into the passage, thinning as it went, like breath exhaled into waiting lungs.
Far away, too far to see, but not to feel- something shifted in response.
Lyessa pressed a hand to her chest. "The ley lines," she said shakily. "They're… realigning. Subtly. Like the world is bracing."
"For what?" Edrin asked.
Rath answered before the voice could. "For me to walk again."
The passage pulsed once, then stilled. The symbols etched into the stone faded, not extinguished, but dormant, asleep rather than erased. The crack remained, but it no longer felt hungry.
It felt patient.
Rath pulled his sword free. The metal slid out without resistance, leaving behind stone that looked… healed. Scarred, but no longer bleeding.
He staggered back a step, suddenly dizzy. Edrin caught him, swearing softly as he bore Rath's weight. "You're shaking," he said. "You need to sit."
Rath nodded distantly, sinking onto a boulder. His hands trembled uncontrollably now that the pressure had eased, adrenaline bleeding away and leaving exhaustion in its wake.
Lyessa knelt in front of him, searching his face. "What did it do to you?"
Rath met her gaze. "It stopped pretending."
Her breath hitched. "Pretending to be what?"
"A curse," Rath said. "A punishment. A mistake."
Silence stretched between them, thick and uneasy.
Edrin scrubbed a hand over his face. "I don't like this," he muttered. "Every time we learn something, it gets worse."
Rath managed a weak smile. "That means we're getting closer to the truth."
"That's not comforting."
"No," Rath agreed. "It isn't."
The road ahead shimmered faintly now, no longer distorted, but altered—like a path seen after a storm has washed the dust away. It was still dangerous. Still broken. But it was honest in its damage.
They moved on slowly.
Rath walked with care, each step deliberate, testing the world beneath his feet. He felt different—not stronger, not wiser, but… acknowledged. The constant friction he had lived with since the curse took hold had eased, replaced by a quieter tension, like a drawn bow held steady.
They hadn't gone far when Lyessa stopped abruptly.
"Do you feel that?" she asked.
Edrin frowned. "Feel what?"
Rath closed his eyes.
Yes.
Movement- not approaching, not fleeing, but adjusting. Like pieces on a board being nudged into new positions.
"They know," he said.
Lyessa swallowed. "The kings?"
"And the gods," Rath replied. "And everything that thought it had time."
Edrin glanced back toward the crack, now barely visible behind them. "You didn't just step closer to the storm," he said quietly. "You told it where you are."
Rath opened his eyes. "No," he said. "I told it where I'm going."
They reached the crest of the next rise as the sun dipped low, staining the sky with red and gold. Below them, the land stretched wide and wounded—villages, roads, rivers, all of it threaded with faint fractures that caught the dying light.
Sumaria.
Fragile. Fractured. Still standing.
Lyessa joined him at the crest. "What happens now?"
Rath took a long breath, feeling the steady rhythm beneath his ribs answer him in kind.
"Now," he said, "the world stops breaking quietly."
Far below, deep beneath stone and memory, something ancient shifted its attention—not with hunger, not with command, but with interest sharpened into intent.
The hinge had moved.
And what followed would not be gentle.
It arrived in stages. measured, deliberate. Roads grew crowded with refugees who did not speak of what they fled, only that staying had felt wrong. Shrines failed one by one, not shattering, but going silent, their prayers falling flat as stones dropped into deep water. Kings issued proclamations that contradicted each other within the same breath, orders layered over older orders until obedience became guesswork and punishment became arbitrary.
And beneath it all, the ground remembered.
the crack opened where no fault should have been. Wells soured overnight. Animals refused certain paths, balking and screaming until beaten forward or abandoned. Children began to dream the same dreams in places far too distant to share stories of doors standing open in the dark, of voices promising warmth, safety, belonging.
Rath felt each change like a bruise forming under the skin of the world.
The pull did not demand action. It did not rush him. It simply adjusted, tightening its understanding, learning how far it could bend things without breaking them outright. Whatever had noticed him was no longer probing.
It was coordinating.
And somewhere ahead, whether in stone, in faith, or in flesh, a door was being prepared that would not open all at once.
When it did, it would not ask permission.
And mercy would not be part of the design.
Night fell without ceremony.
There was no dramatic deepening of shadow, no thunder to mark the turning. The light simply drained from the sky, leaving behind a flat, colorless dusk that slid into true dark like a held breath finally released. Stars emerged slowly, muted and distant, as if unsure whether they were still welcome.
They made camp in a shallow bowl of stone just off the road. Rath insisted on it- no fire, no clear line of sight from any direction. The land felt watchful now. Not hostile, exactly. Curious. As if it had realized something important had changed and was waiting to see what would happen next.
Edrin took first watch without argument. Lyessa sat across from Rath, knees drawn up, fingers worrying a charm that no longer glowed.
Rath began humming a song in the night.
"I'm a wild free ranging rover. I roaaam, and sing a merry song. The wide wide world i wander over, with a light light heart i rove alooong. Oooooh I'm a wild free rover, i sing a merry song. The wide wide world I wander overr. With a dark dark heart I wander over… with a light light heart I rove alooong. And the cloudsss roam free along the skyyyy."
Lyessa was quietly listening with her tent open.
"What was that?" Lyessa asked with a smile on her face.
"It's just a song my mother taught me when i was just a boy." Rath responded with a look of sadness on his face.
"What do you remember about your parents" Lyessa asked
Rath replied "My mother was fantastic, she was a beautiful soul.. Not like my father though, he was a mean drunk and he croaked when i was 9."
"I'm sorry" Lyessa replied with sorrow.
"I think we should go to sleep" Rath said.
"Ok, goodnight Rath" Lyessa replied
Sleep came in thin layers, broken and shallow. When Rath did drift under, it was not into dreams, but into impressions, pressure and direction, like standing in a river and feeling the current wrap around his legs without pulling him under.
He woke before dawn, alert and tense.
Something was wrong.
The pull was still there. Steady, controlled, but the world around it felt… hollowed. As if something nearby had been removed too cleanly.
Edrin noticed him stir. "You feel it too," he said.
Rath nodded and rose to a crouch. The air smelled faintly of ash, though there was no fire. Lyessa was already awake, pale and rigid, staring toward the road.
"There was a village there," she whispered.
Rath followed her gaze.
Where the road bent through a shallow valley, lights should have glimmered. Smoke should have risen. Instead, there was only darkness, dense, unnatural darkness that swallowed the faint starlight around it.
"No," Rath said slowly. "There is a village there."
They approached at a careful pace, weapons drawn, senses stretched thin. The darkness did not retreat as they drew closer. It clung to the buildings, pooling in doorways and windows, thick enough that Rath felt resistance when he stepped into it, like pushing through heavy cloth.
Edrin muttered a curse. "This isn't shadow."
"No," Lyessa agreed. "This is absence."
The village was intact.
That was the worst part.
No fire damage. No broken doors. No blood in the street. Houses stood exactly as they should have, tools still leaning against walls, carts half-loaded, laundry stiff on lines where it had been left overnight.
But there were no people.
Rath stepped into the square. His boots made sound, but it seemed muffled, swallowed after only a few feet.
"They didn't run," he said. "They didn't fight."
Lyessa pressed a hand to the well at the center of the square. "They didn't die here either."
Edrin's voice was tight. "Then where did they go?"
Rath closed his eyes.
The pull shifted. Not downward, not forward, but inward, tightening around his chest like a question.
"Taken," he said. "Not by force."
Lyessa turned sharply. "You're saying they followed."
"Yes."
They found the trail near the chapel.
Not footprints. Not drag marks.
A pattern.
Symbols carved shallowly into stone and dirt, repeated over and over, crude but deliberate. Rath didn't recognize them, but his skin crawled when he looked at them. They weren't summoning marks.
They were invitations.
"They promised something," Lyessa whispered. "Safety. Order. Meaning."
Edrin stared at the chapel doors, which stood open. "And people believed them."
Rath felt a familiar, bitter anger rise in his chest. "They always do."
Inside the chapel, the altar had been cleared. Candles burned low, their flames unnaturally steady. At the center of the floor, someone had drawn a circle, not in chalk or blood, but carved directly into the stone, shallow and precise.
It wasn't finished.
"They were interrupted," Edrin said.
"No," Rath replied. "They left willingly. This was just… a marker."
Lyessa turned to him. "For you."
The realization settled heavy and undeniable.
"This wasn't random," Rath said. "It's response."
"To what?" Edrin demanded.
"To me surviving," Rath said quietly.
The air shifted.
Not violently. Not suddenly.
Just enough to make Lyessa gasp and Edrin spin, sword raised.
A figure stood at the far end of the chapel, half-formed, like a reflection that hadn't finished deciding what it was reflecting. It wore the shape of a man- hooded, robed, hands folded calmly before it, but its edges blurred, as if reality itself was reluctant to commit.
It did not step forward.
It did not attack.
It bowed.
"Bearer," it said, voice layered and indistinct, as if several people were speaking slightly out of sync. "We were not sure you would come."
Rath felt the pull tighten sharply, not painful, but insistent. "You took them."
"Yes," the figure replied. "They asked to be taken."
Edrin snarled. "You stole them."
The figure tilted its head. "Is it theft when the door is opened from the inside?"
Lyessa's hands shook as she raised a ward. "What are you?"
The figure considered. "A messenger," it said at last. "A gatherer. A preparer."
Rath stepped forward, placing himself between it and the others. "For whom?"
The figure hesitated.
That alone told Rath everything.
"You don't know," he said.
The figure's outline flickered. "We know enough. The world is thinning. The old divisions no longer hold. People seek shelter."
"And you offer it," Rath said.
"Yes."
"At what cost?"
The figure smiled, not with malice, but with certainty. "Participation."
The word echoed unpleasantly in the chapel.
Lyessa whispered, "They're building something."
"Yes," the figure said. "And you are the axis."
Rath's jaw clenched. "I didn't agree to this."
The figure bowed its head again. "Not consciously."
The pressure surged.
Rath felt the truth settle in his bones like cold iron.
They weren't reacting to him.
They were organizing around him.
"How many?" Rath asked.
The figure's smile widened. "Enough to matter."
Edrin's grip tightened on his sword. "Rath-"
"I know," Rath said softly.
He raised his blade.
The figure did not flee.
Steel passed through it without resistance, slicing through light and shadow alike. The form collapsed inward, folding in on itself like a curtain being drawn, until there was nothing left but the faint smell of ozone and extinguished candles.
The silence afterward was absolute.
Lyessa sagged against a pew. "That didn't feel like a victory."
"No," Rath agreed. "It felt like confirmation."
They left the village before dawn fully broke.
As they crested the hill beyond it, Rath looked back once.
For a moment– just a moment, he thought he saw figures standing in the streets, watching them go. Men. Women. Children. Whole.
Then the light shifted, and the village was empty again.
They traveled hard that day, pushing themselves past exhaustion. Rath didn't argue when Edrin forced breaks, when Lyessa insisted on rest. He needed the time to think.
The pattern was becoming clear.
Demons rose where the land was weak.
Soldiers moved where power could be seized.
And now people were disappearing. Not torn away, but gathered.
Something was building momentum.
That night, as they camped beneath a shattered aqueduct, Lyessa spoke the thought none of them wanted to voice.
"This is how religions start," she said. "Not with gods. With answers."
Rath stared into the dark beneath the arches. "And with someone to stand at the center."
Edrin shook his head. "You're not letting that happen."
Rath didn't respond immediately.
When he did, his voice was steady. "I don't get to choose whether it starts."
Lyessa looked at him sharply. "Then what do you choose?"
Rath closed his eyes, feeling the steady, patient rhythm beneath his ribs.
"I choose where it breaks," he said.
Far away, beyond the reach of kings and crowns, the world shifted again, not cracking this time, but aligning.
And whatever watched from beyond the door did not smile.
It leaned forward.