Inside a forest that shouldn't have existed, the air was completely still. Not calm—
absent. Like the concept of atmosphere had never been introduced here. Time didn't move either. The whole place felt assembled from thought rather than matter, the kind of space that existed because something had decided it should.
A boy stood at the center of it.
The abominations came from every direction.
The first one lunged. The boy sidestepped left without urgency, let the thing's momentum carry it past him, and drove his heel into the back of its ankle. It went down. Before it found its balance he put his hand through its head.
The second came from behind, going for his neck. He caught it with a back heel kick without turning around. The third came from the front while he was still recovering. He hit its jaw on the way back up.
Then Kael stepped out.
The boy recognized him. He always recognized him. Kael raised his hand and what gathered there was faint, barely present, more like the memory of divinity than divinity itself —- but it was real enough. Real enough to matter.
The boy didn't step back.
He reached inward instead. Every piece of grief he still carried. Every fragment of rage he had spent months learning to hold without being held by it. The desire to end this specific man, contained and deliberate and patient. He gathered all of it and moved it into his fist.
Something covered his arm. Not armor exactly. More like intention given a physical shape.
Kael slashed.
The boy took it.
His arm held.
He was covered in cuts. He barely registered them. What he registered was the result — he had stopped divinity with his own body and his own will and nothing else. He had finally done it.
Before Kael could pull back he crushed his head.
Sun opened his eyes.
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, back straight, breathing even. The forest dissolved. The abominations dissolved. Kael dissolved.
Finally.
Since the day his parents died he had been unable to hunt Nullspawn — too young, Frank wouldn't allow it, the world outside had no interest in accommodating a five year old's need to practice killing things. So he had built a space inside his own mind and practiced there. Imaginary training. He had killed Kael in that space more times than he had counted. This was the first time he had successfully defended against divinity.
It was a start.
A knock at the door.
"Dinner's ready."
Frank's voice. Sun stood, straightened his clothes, and opened the door.
Frank's expression shifted the moment he saw him. Something in the man's face loosened — a tension that had been sitting there so long it had started to look like his natural state.
He responded. Frank thought it without meaning to. He actually responded.
Since the night Sun's parents died he hadn't spoken a single word. He had eaten when food was placed in front of him. He had slept. He had existed in the house with the specific quality of something that had forgotten it was supposed to be alive. Frank had told himself it was grief. That it would pass. That you couldn't rush a child through something like that.
But there was a difference between grief and whatever Sun had been doing in that room.
If only he knew.
The plates were already set by the time Sun sat down. He didn't look at them. He didn't look at Frank either. He just sat, back straight, eyes still, like sitting was the only thing currently happening.
Frank watched him for a moment, then picked up his spoon.
"So," he said, leaning back slightly. 'Big day tomorrow."
Nothing.
Frank scooped some food. "System merger ceremony. Excited? Nervous? Planning to overthrow the gods immediately after, or giving it a few days first?"
Sun's gaze stayed on the middle distance, somewhere between Frank's face and the wall behind it.
"I mean," Frank continued, unbothered, "I didn't sleep at all the night before mine. Thought I'd wake up with something dramatic. Lightning. Fire. Something worth telling people about." He paused. "Got enhanced digestion instead."
Silence.
Frank nodded slowly to himself. Yeah. Real legendary stuff. Enemies tremble. I can eat twice as much and feel completely fine."
Sun lifted his spoon. Ate. No change in expression.
Frank leaned forward slightly. "You're really not going to say anything."
A pause.
"There is nothing to say," Sun replied.
Frank blinked. Then laughed once. "Nothing to say. Tomorrow categorizes your entire existence and you've got nothing."
"It doesn't decide anything," Sun said. "It categorizes what already exists."
Frank raised an eyebrow. "Right. That's definitely not something someone says right before getting assigned minor water control and crying about it later."
Sun didn't respond.
Frank tapped the table. "Normal kids your age would be at least pretending to be brave right now. You're just…"He gestured vaguely. "There."
Sun continued eating.
"Let me guess," Frank said. "You're sitting there thinking the system is flawed, the gods are frauds, and this is all essentially meaningless."
Sun's hand stopped.
Just for a fraction of a second.
Then continued.
Frank's grin widened. "Oh. I landed on something."
"No", Sun said.
"You say no," Frank waved it off, "but your eye just moved."
Sun's spoon paused again. Slightly longer this time.
"It didn't," Sun said.
"It did. Small one. Like your face briefly remembered it's connected to a person."
Silence.
Frank laughed quietly. "I got a reaction. I feel genuinely accomplished right now."
Sun didn't look at him. But there was something around his eye —- faint, gone almost before it arrived.
Frank pointed. "There. Again. Careful, at this rate you might accidentally smile sometime before you're thirty."
"That is unlikely," Sun said.
Frank nodded seriously. "Fair. Wouldn't want to compromise the reputation before the ceremony."
He took another bite, then added, more quietly, "Whatever happens tomorrow. Don't overthink it."
Sun didn't answer.
Frank glanced at him once more, voice easy. "Even if it's enhanced digestion. Trust me. More useful than it sounds."
A pause.
"I don't intend to rely on what it gives me,"
Sun said.
Frank smirked. "Of course not. You'll probably question it until it starts doubting itself."
Silence came back.
But it sat differently than it had at the start of dinner.
Frank noticed.
He didn't say anything about it.
He just smiled and finished his food.