Morning arrived without warmth.
The dimness in the sky lifted only slightly, as though the world had forgotten the difference between night and day. A pale light filtered down across the basin of broken stone where Lyria had slept, thin enough that shadows looked weak and uncertain. Dust lay undisturbed around her, and for a moment, with her eyes half open, she could pretend the battlefield had been a nightmare and that she would sit up to find laundry tubs and sunlit streets waiting for her.
Then she remembered the crack in the heavens, the erased land, and the eyes that had watched her from above.
She pushed herself upright, stiff with cold and sore in places she did not want to name. Her throat felt raw, and her stomach clenched with hunger the moment she moved. She glanced down at her hands and found the dried blood still there, dark against her skin, along with dirt packed beneath her nails. The sight made her swallow hard.
Across the basin, he stood exactly where he had been before she slept.
He did not lean against the stone. He did not shift his weight. He seemed carved into the air itself, a still point the world refused to move around. Yet the distortions that had once flickered wildly around him remained drawn inward, contained in a tight radius that made the air feel dense but steady.
Lyria became aware, belatedly, of what was missing.
There had been no tremors in her sleep. No sudden cracks running through the ground. No distant groaning from the sky. The basin had held its shape through the night, as if the world had been allowed a few hours of rest.
Because she had stayed close.
The thought settled in her chest as she rose to her feet. She brushed dust from her clothes and tried not to think about what it meant that her presence had become a requirement.
He turned his head slightly, acknowledging that she was awake.
You did not leave, he said.
It was not gratitude. It was observation.
I didn't know where to go, she replied, and the honesty in her own voice startled her. She could have tried to run in the night. She could have put distance between herself and him, even if the world tore itself apart behind her. But she had not moved.
She did not like what that revealed about her.
The air above them pulsed faintly, almost like a heartbeat.
He looked upward, and this time she followed his gaze.
The sky had no visible crack now, yet the thinness remained. The light seemed strained, as if it filtered through a surface stretched too tightly. She felt the sensation of being watched again, a pressure too distant to crush but too present to ignore.
They continue, he said.
Continue what?
Locating the deviation.
Her stomach tightened.
They're searching for me.
They are searching for correction.
It was only a difference of words, yet it made her feel colder.
He began to walk, and Lyria fell into step beside him, keeping the same careful distance she had maintained since the battlefield. The land outside the basin was worse than before. Fine fractures spread through the plains, and in places the earth had collapsed into shallow sinks, exposing stone that looked scorched without fire. The grass remained gray and brittle. Even insects seemed absent, as though life had decided it was safer to retreat.
They moved for an hour before she saw the first sign of other people.
A column of smoke rose in the distance, thin and wavering. At first she thought it was another ruin collapsing, but the smoke held steady, curling upward in a controlled stream.
A campfire.
Her heart jumped, and then tightened.
Humans.
She slowed instinctively.
He did not.
Wait, she said, and the single word sounded too loud in the empty air.
He paused, turning his gaze toward the distant smoke.
Alive, he said, as though the concept required confirmation.
They'll be afraid, she told him, though she was not sure whether she was warning him or herself. If they see you, they'll run. Or they'll try to fight. Or they'll scream and make everything worse.
They are irrelevant.
They're not irrelevant to me.
The words slipped out before she could reshape them into something safer.
His gaze returned to her. The stillness in his expression remained, but she sensed a faint tightening in the air, the way it did when she forced an idea into his world that did not fit cleanly.
She took a slow breath and tried again.
If they see you, they'll die, she said, and her voice came out more steady than she felt. Not because you want them to, but because they'll panic. They'll do something stupid. They'll make you react.
He regarded her for a moment, then turned back toward the smoke.
Your concern is inefficient, he said.
Maybe, she answered. But it's still concern.
They approached slowly.
As they closed the distance, the camp came into view, no more than a cluster of tents made from torn cloth and propped branches. A few figures moved within it, thin and exhausted, their motions cautious. A small group of children huddled near the fire, hands extended toward the heat.
Lyria's throat tightened.
These were not soldiers. There were no banners, no armor. Just survivors.
A woman saw them first.
She stiffened, her hand going to the knife at her belt. She stared at Lyria, then at him, and her face drained of color.
The camp reacted in a wave.
People rose abruptly. Someone shouted. A child began to cry. A man reached for a spear that looked more like a sharpened branch than a weapon.
The air around him shifted, and Lyria felt the start of pressure gathering, the beginning of a response that would not distinguish between threat and fear.
She stepped closer to him.
The distortion eased.
Not gone, but gentler, held back.
She turned toward the camp and lifted her hands, palms open, forcing her voice to carry without breaking.
We're not here to hurt you, she called.
Her words sounded strange in her own ears. She had never been someone who addressed crowds. She had always kept her head down, listened, obeyed. Now she stood in front of a firelit camp with a god beside her, and the world waited to see whether her voice mattered.
The shouting faltered.
A man with a bandage wrapped around his head stared at her, suspicion sharp in his eyes.
Who is that? he demanded, and his voice trembled even as he tried to make it firm.
Lyria's mind raced. There was no safe answer. If she said he was a god, they would worship or panic. If she said he was a monster, they would attack. If she said nothing, they would fill the silence with fear.
He won't hurt you, she said instead, choosing the only truth she could hold. We're passing through. We need water, and then we'll leave.
The woman's gaze flicked to the empty scar of land visible in the distance, the unnatural smoothness on the horizon. Everyone had heard stories already. You could see it in the way their eyes kept sliding toward him, in the way their hands shook around makeshift weapons.
Is he the one? someone whispered.
Lyria felt her stomach twist.
She could feel his attention as well, the way he observed the camp with distant neutrality, as though measuring how many breaths remained in bodies that would eventually end.
Do not interfere, she thought at him, though she did not know if he could hear thoughts. The plea came from somewhere deeper than language.
The pressure around him remained contained.
A boy, no older than ten, stumbled forward despite his mother's frantic grip. He stared at Lyria with wide eyes.
Did the sky really break? he asked.
The simplicity of the question struck her harder than any accusation.
She nodded slowly.
His gaze flicked to the dark figure behind her.
Is he going to break it again?
Lyria hesitated.
Honesty felt dangerous. Comfort felt like a lie.
Before she could answer, the air overhead pulsed again, stronger than before. The thinness in the sky deepened, and a faint ringing filled her ears. It was the same sensation she had felt on the plains, as if something beyond the world had leaned closer.
The camp noticed it too. Heads tilted upward. Hands tightened on weapons. A murmur spread like a nervous animal.
He lifted his gaze, and for the first time she sensed something like impatience in the stillness of his posture.
They approach, he said.
Who? Lyria asked, though she already knew.
Those who enforce correction.
The words froze the camp.
A woman screamed, a sharp sound of panic that cut through the basin of silence and set everything vibrating. Children began to cry again. Someone grabbed the nearest child and pulled them toward the tents.
The pressure around him surged in response, the beginning of ruin rising like a tide.
Lyria stepped closer to him again, heart pounding.
The surge slowed.
Not stopped, but restrained.
She turned to the survivors, forcing her voice steady though her throat felt tight.
Get down, she said, and there was something in her tone that made people obey. Stay low. Stay behind the tents. Do not run.
The command sounded absurd, yet panic often followed the first voice that offered shape.
The survivors hesitated, then scrambled, pulling children into cover, dropping behind torn canvas and makeshift barriers.
Above them, the sky dimmed.
A thin line of pale light appeared, not as a crack this time but as a circle forming high overhead, like an eye opening.
Cold pressure touched the camp, delicate compared to his weight yet sharper, more precise. It did not crush. It measured.
Lyria felt it pass over her skin, and then linger.
The circle brightened.
A voice, distant and clear, spoke from beyond the sky, not through air but through the space inside her bones.
Deviation confirmed.
The survivors did not understand the words, but they felt the terror in them. Several began to sob silently.
He stepped forward, placing himself between the circle of light and the camp without hesitation. The air around him tightened into controlled distortion, and for the first time she understood that he was not only dangerous to the world. He was dangerous to whatever watched from above as well.
The circle flared brighter.
A spear of pale light began to descend.
Not toward him.
Toward her.
Lyria's breath caught.
She did not have time to move.
The world tightened around the falling light, the air thinning to nothing, as if reality itself held its breath.
He moved.
The force of his authority surged, not outward in uncontrolled ruin but upward, like a shield rising into place. The spear of light struck an invisible barrier and shattered into fragments that rained down as harmless sparks, dissolving before they touched the ground.
The impact shook the air.
The camp fell silent.
Lyria stared, trembling, as the last sparks faded.
He remained in front of her.
He had not spoken, not announced, not warned. He had simply acted.
For the first time since the sky broke, she felt the full meaning of what he had done on the battlefield. Not destruction.
Decision.
The circle of light hovered overhead, pulsing with restrained anger.
Correction obstructed, the distant voice said. Escalation authorized.
The pressure thickened.
The survivors began to whimper, eyes wide as they stared at the sky that had become an open eye above their camp.
Lyria's heart hammered.
She looked at him, and he looked back, calm as ever, yet his attention seemed sharper now, focused in a way it had not been before.
Stay close, he said, and for the first time the words sounded less like an instruction and more like the outline of a plan.
Then he turned toward the watching sky, and the air around him began to bend as though the world itself braced for what came next.