Some doors do not open forward.
They open inward.
This chapter is not a rise.
It is a crossing.
Pay attention to what breaks.
Pay closer attention to what remains.
----------------------------------------------------------
I swoop down.
I gather Seth.
Blood stains my arms.
It is warm. Too warm. Slick where it should never be.
Time breathes slowly around us, but his chest does not follow its rhythm. Each inhale stutters. Each exhale catches, sharp and wet, like air scraping past something torn.
My name does not leave his mouth.
That breaks me.
I fold around him, one arm braced beneath his shoulders, the other pressed flat against his back as if I can hold his breath in place by force alone. His body trembles once, then stills, breath hitching again, thinner this time.
The knife found his lung.
I know it the way I know Scripture.
The way I know pain.
"I've got you," I whisper, the words dissolving into him rather than the air. My forehead lowers until it rests against his temple. I feel the tremor there, faint but present.
"You carried me," I breathe. "Let me carry you now."
My lips hover near his, not touching. Almost. Close enough that our breaths mingle, uneven and fragile between us.
The ground eases away.
I rise with him cradled against my chest, lifting us clear of grasping hands and fractured stone, carrying him upward into space the violence cannot reach. The air steadies around us, holding, waiting, as I draw him closer and breathe him in like a vow I refuse to break.
As we lift, something shifts around us.
Silver spills outward from my body in a widening field, not flaring, not breaking free, but expanding. It reaches beyond my skin, stretching a measured distance into the air, a living veil that moves with us. Threads of gold travel through it constantly, sliding and braiding in slow, deliberate motion, never still, never chaotic.
The aura does not shine.
It adjusts.
It drapes itself around Seth instinctively, curling along his shoulders and chest, brushing his throat, his ribs, the shallow rise and fall of his breath. It does not press. It does not bind. It touches, as if learning him by feel.
I draw in.
Gold and silver gather at the back of my throat, warm and dense, woven so tightly they no longer distinguish themselves. Flame and Breath move together, inseparable, their rhythm familiar to me now.
I exhale into him.
What leaves me is not air, but power refined through union. Flame carries Breath. Breath carries Flame. Neither yields. Neither leads.
It is no longer only mine.
Light spills from my mouth in a soft stream, gold dissolving into silver as it crosses the space between us, then folding back again, fluid and continuous. The aura responds instantly, tightening its flow, guiding what I give with practiced intent.
The mist closes around us, drawing inward as Breath enters him. It sinks into his lips, his lungs, the torn places inside him that do not remember how to heal. Silver cools the damage. Gold recalls the shape it must hold.
I feel the moment resistance gives way.
Tissue yields. Breath deepens. Pain loosens its hold.
The power settles, steady and deliberate, carried forward as part of him now.
I feel it when it reaches the damage.
I feel resistance give way.
I feel tissue remember its shape.
I feel blood slow.
I feel pain dull into something survivable.
The aura lingers there, caressing, steady, unwilling to let go until the work is done.
His chest jerks.
A breath drags itself in, deeper this time. Still ragged, but real.
Again, I breathe into him.
The Flame moves with me. The Breath follows. Power flows where my intent goes, and all of it funnels into him without hesitation.
This is not healing as it once was.
This is sharing.
His breathing changes against me as I carry him.
The frantic edge softens. The struggle remains, but a rhythm begins to form.
The sound shifts, losing its harsh metallic scrape, smoothing as the torn lung remembers the shape it once held.
I press my forehead to his again.
"Come back to me," I murmur, the words breaking as they leave me. "Please."
The world waits.
I feel it then. The same wrongness I felt earlier.
The awareness arrived before thought, a pressure that did not belong to the room or the moment. Not danger yet. But danger that was approaching fast. The kind that moved sideways through causality rather than forward through space.
I lift my head.
Four figures remain suspended within the space, watching.
Their attention pins the room in place, vast and merciless. Their eyes see everything. Every breath. Every hidden blade. Every lie that still wears a human face.
I met their gaze.
All of it.
Every angle. Every threat. Seth. The room.
I nodded.
They did not rush.
They repositioned reality.
One remained where it was, locking the moment in place.
The second unfolded to the right, the wall shivering along its path, stone wavering in the eye, lines bending and rippling like a heat mirage before the structure remembered itself and held.
Time dragged through the moment.
The people seated before it felt the change as a delay rather than a blow.
Weight loosened slowly.
Bodies lifted from their seats by inches instead of force, breath stretching thin as gravity thinned with it. Fingers curled around armrests that no longer resisted. Shoes peeled from the floor. Panic reached their faces before sound reached their mouths.
Some screamed.
The sound arrived late.
The afterimage passed.
Gravity remembered itself faster than they did.
The return was not immediate. It gathered.
Then it fell.
Bodies slammed back into stone in staggered impacts, seats splintering under delayed force, breath tearing free in sharp, helpless bursts that landed seconds after the impact itself. The sound rolled through the Forum like a held breath finally released.
When the moment finished catching up with itself, no one moved.
Across the chamber, the third afterimage unfolded.
The ceiling curved inward above it, vast and smooth, its surface bending without sound or fracture. Light slid along the curve, pooling and thinning as if depth itself had been rewritten. Below, the floor answered, bulging upward in quiet symmetry. Stone did not crack. It yielded.
The distance between them narrowed.
People caught in that space felt it immediately. Bodies compressed, not crushed, held in a suspended moment where breath stretched thin and lungs struggled to decide how much air still fit inside them. Faces elongated in the warped light. Voices emerged distorted, arriving late, dragged through reshaped space.
Then the afterimage settled.
The chamber released its hold.
Ceiling and floor eased back into place. Light snapped straight. Gravity returned with bruising insistence. Those seated there collapsed into themselves, coughing, shaking, aware enough to understand what had almost happened.
Time still breathed slowly.
I felt the weight of it in my bones as the remaining afterimages took their positions, the Forum no longer a room but a living geometry, folded and unfolded at will.
Nothing here was breaking.
Everything was being taught.
The fourth moves forward.
Silver strands unfurl from her waist, threaded with living gold. They multiply as she flies, extending and dividing until they coil around every hostile form, binding without haste or strain. Scripture fills the space between bodies, moving with calm, deliberate intent.
She waits for my command.
Rings. Stones. Generators.
All of it bound.
All of it held.
I lift higher, Seth cradled close, and speak.
"Evil is not only spiritual," I say.
My voice carries without force. It does not need it.
"It is human. And humans must live with what they choose."
Silence answers me.
"What you see before you is not punishment," I continue. "It is return."
"You reached for power that was never yours. You hollowed yourselves to hold it."
The four figures remain still, attention absolute.
"Now you will remain as you are."
"Alive. Aware. Emptied."
My gaze lifts beyond the chamber, beyond warped walls and suspended stone, toward places unseen but present all the same. Then I look to the fourth afterimage and blink.
Scripture answers.
The silver strands tighten.
They reach deeper. Into the bodies they hold. Into the weapons clutched in failing hands. Into every vessel still humming with stolen essence.
"Let this be heard by those who wait in shadow, and those who think distance is safety."
Gold and silver tear free in violent streams, dragged upward through resistance that screams without forming sound. Spines bow under sudden weight. Knees slam into obsidian. Breath turns ragged, lungs stuttering as power is ripped from places it was never meant to root.
"Stand against Heaven… and you will not be destroyed."
The words settle like law.
Minds fracture as the last support is torn away. Thought unravels. Panic cannot form. Screams dissolve into broken noise that carries no meaning.
My face does not change.
"You will be kept. You will be stripped of power. Stripped of excuse. Stripped of the lie that strength makes you more than human."
I draw Seth closer, my cheek brushing his temple, his breath still fighting to steady.
"And you will live long enough to understand what you have lost."
Whatever once held them upright does not return.
The strands withdraw.
What remains collapses inward.
Then the brands appear.
Glyphs etch themselves into flesh without flame or spectacle. They form slowly, deliberately, sealing something fundamental. Memory closes. Essence locks. Nothing may be drawn from them now. Nothing may enter.
No voice will ever answer again.
I remain airborne.
Seth's weight rests against me, his breath still shallow but present, each pull of air warmer than the last. Relief tries to form.
It does not finish.
Time resumes.
Sound crashes back into the Forum all at once. Stone groans under sudden weight. Bodies fall where they had been held suspended, cries tearing loose as gravity remembers its claim. Blood strikes obsidian. Breath stutters. Seats scrape. Shock ripples outward in uneven waves.
Something tightens low in my chest.
The wrongness presses inward this time, subtle at first, then undeniable. The sensation has shape now. Direction. Purpose.
"Max."
Jamey's voice cuts upward through the chaos. He has moved beneath me, eyes wide, head tilted as if listening to something the room cannot hear.
"It's coming," he shouts. "This isn't done."
Hannah stands beside him, pale and still. She doesn't speak. She doesn't need to. Her gaze tracks the same unseen horizon I feel bending toward us.
Alec, Marcus, Adrian, and Claire converge instinctively, forming a loose ring below me. No one asks for orders.
I feel Seth shift in my arms.
His breath deepens, then steadies. Heat gathers beneath my hands where his skin meets mine, unfamiliar and fierce. I look down just as he inhales sharply, silver breath spilling outward in a controlled exhale that frosts the air around us.
He opens his eyes.
Gold burns there.
His hair spills loose over my arm, lengthening as if caught in a wind without a source.
"I felt it," he says quietly, his gaze holding mine. "Your change. Same way I can feel mine unfolding."
He lifts a hand to my cheek, his smile soft but certain. "You can let go now, my love."
My grip loosens reluctantly.
He floats free before me, suspended in the air, and I take him in from head to toe.
Flame gathers through his hair, flowing without wind. Black glyphs carve themselves into his chest and upper arms, stark against skin lit with a golden hue. From his waist, golden strands fall, etched with the same dark script, swaying with quiet authority.
He draws a breath.
The air beneath his foot hardens.
Ice forms, intricate and flawless, then vanishes the instant his weight lifts. Another step appears. Then another. Each one exists only long enough to accept him as he moves closer, until he stands a breath away from me.
I pull him into my arms.
"I missed you terribly," I murmur.
My grip tightens reflexively.
"Not more than I missed you," he replies, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
Then he turns, placing himself between me and the room, glancing back once with a steady smile as he reaches for my hand.
"Come," he says.
He steps forward into nothing.
Ice answers.
Together, we descend.
Not straight down.
In a slow spiral formation, snowflake steps forming and dissolving beneath us as Seth leads, guiding us toward our family.
Toward those who rely on us.
Toward those who need us to be steady.
Toward those who need us whole.
Frost laces the air in our wake, and then fades. Below, the team looks up, awe and readiness braided tight.
We land among them as the final step vanishes.
Seth releases my hand only once my feet touch ground.
Jamey stops short before us. Alec joins him a beat later.
"I know I'm not supposed to say this," Jamey says carefully, eyes flicking between us, "but if the universe had parents… I feel like I just met them."
Alec squints at him.
"I knew the moment she absorbed your power that nothing normal was coming out of it."
He gestures vaguely between Seth and me. "You got partially consumed."
Then he exhales sharply. "And somehow that turned them into this."
He shakes his head. "You are never allowed to be sacrificed again. I'm vetoing it."
Seth rests a hand on Jamey's shoulder, then Alec's.
"Save it," he says evenly. "You're both still standing. That's the win."
His gaze lifts.
"Now brace."
The afterimages turn as one.
They descend toward me in a silent arc, then sweep past, fanning outward to face the doors.
Space does not resist them. It yields.
Whatever approaches has already been measured.
Then the doors at the far end of the Forum open.
They do not burst inward. They part.
Figures move through the threshold, massive silhouettes wearing human skin the way a lie wears truth. They are too large. Too dense. Each step lands with a weight that does not match their shape. I cannot see what anchors them, but I feel it.
"Those blasphemous stones again. They never learn."
A core buried deep beneath flesh. Cold… ancient and unforgiving.
More follow. Enough that counting becomes meaningless. The chamber recoils, light dimming as if uncertain how to touch them.
People scream.
I lift my head.
The stone-core beings advance.
And the battle shifts.
I feel it first, before sound or motion, but as rejection.
The stones embedded within them vibrate, a low, malignant thrum that pushes back against us, against Heaven itself.
My afterimages do not wait.
They release a roar.
Sound becomes command. Flame and Breath braid together, unleashed in a dual voice that strikes deeper than ears. Those still seated in the Forum lunge to shield themselves, hands clamped over heads and chests as the vibration rolls through bone and blood alike, stirring nausea, panic, and something far more primal.
The figures stagger.
Just one step.
Enough for me to feel it.
A fracture forms, hairline and sharp, splitting through the stone cores buried within their forms.
Still insufficient.
Seth tenses beside me.
I do not look at him. I do not need to. The same calculation crosses us both.
He inhales.
When he exhales, the world answers.
Four afterimages tear free from him, radiant and terrible. Where mine are silver-blue and refined, his blaze sun-kissed and feral. Long hair streams like living fire, crowned by an infinity-shaped glyph in black, smaller marks spilling downward across brow, nose, lips, throat, until they converge in a fierce sigil burning at each chest.
From their waists fall golden strands etched with dark script, moving as if alive.
Jamey gropes blindly for Alec's arm and squeals, unrestrained and reverent all at once.
"Oh, my Heaven," he breathes. "I'm taking those home with me."
They surge forward, Seth's afterimages rising to join mine, positioning themselves just behind them.
Then they roar.
Together.
The sound hits harder this time. Space ripples. The embedded stones scream in protest, fractures spidering deeper through their cores.
They remain standing.
They are no longer whole.
The stones answer together.
The vibration is sudden and unified, a soundless resonance that does not travel through air so much as through permission. It ripples outward in a dense, harmonized surge that presses against everything carrying weight beyond flesh.
My breath stutters.
Around me, I feel it register in others all at once. Alec stiffens. Marcus grits his teeth. Claire's aura flares hard before snapping inward. Hannah's hand flies to her chest as if something has reached inside and squeezed.
The resonance does not choose.
It strikes power.
My afterimages take the hit first.
The silver-blue figures shudder as the vibration tears through them, Scripture along their forms blurring, glyphs slipping half a measure out of alignment. Then the force snaps backward.
They are thrown into me.
Impact ripples through my body as four of them collapse inward at once, silver and gold slamming into my chest and spine in a shock that steals my breath. Pain blooms sharp and immediate, low and deep, my body reacting before my mind can catch up.
I gasp.
The weight of it drags through my abdomen, and for a heartbeat I feel the warning there, hot and unmistakable.
Eight more step forward.
They rise seamlessly from the rupture, forming where the first stood without pause or hesitation, silver-blue forms locking into place as if the space itself has already learned to make room for them.
I bite down hard, refusing the sound that tries to tear out of me.
The figures move.
Two of the stone-bound entities lunge, understanding snapping into place behind dead eyes. They do not aim for my body. They do not aim for Seth.
They aim for the afterimages.
One of Seth's afterimages reacts instantly.
It surges forward, motion precise and merciless, hands closing around both figures' faces at once. There is no struggle. No resistance. It twists midair, turns them toward us, and drives downward.
The slam is catastrophic.
Stone shatters inside skin with a sound like mountains breaking apart. The afterimage does not stop. It passes through them, through flesh and fractured core alike, carrying the momentum straight through the obsidian floor itself.
The ground ripples.
Then the afterimage rises back out of the floor, emerging upright and whole, silver-blue form unmarked, expression unchanged. Calm. Observant. Unafraid.
What remains of the figures collapses.
The skin they wore peels inward and drops, empty and obscene, hitting the floor in a wet, boneless heap.
"Oh… absolutely not," Hannah breathes, recoiling. "That's… that's worse than I imagined."
Claire grimaces, one hand lifting instinctively. "I need a fire. Or bleach. Or both. Preferably the fire first."
The afterimage glides back into position with the others.
They do not celebrate.
They do not rush.
They wait.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath the strain and the echoing impact of power returning too fast, I understand the truth settling into place.
The enemy is learning.
So are we.
And my body is keeping score.
Seth turns to me immediately.
"Max?" His voice is low, controlled, already searching.
I nod once.
I do not speak.
Heat rises fast in my throat, sharp and sour, and I swallow hard against it. The world tilts a fraction. Seth sees it anyway. He always does.
His jaw tightens.
Five more afterimages tear free from him in a controlled burst, sun-bright forms stepping into place without spectacle or sound. Gold fire threads their hair. Black glyphs settle into their chests like seals being locked.
I breathe through the nausea and lift.
The air accepts me again, silver and gold carrying my weight as I rise clear of the floor. Below, Claire looks up, eyes already blazing with focus.
"Claire," I say, voice carrying cleanly through the chaos. "You're up. We finish this now. Redirect the stone resonance."
She nods once. No questions.
"Alec. Marcus." I turn my head slightly toward them. "the two of you are with us."
Both move immediately.
"Jamey. Adrian. Hannah." My gaze snaps back to the crowd. "Get everyone out. Now."
They do not argue.
I surge forward.
My strands lash outward, silver ribbons etched with living gold, snapping through the air like whips. One strikes an entity square in the chest. Flame erupts instantly, white-hot and consuming. Another strand coils inward, sharp and precise, wrapping the stone core buried inside the thing.
The skin disintegrates first.
Then the rest follows.
Nothing remains.
Seth moves beside me.
Where my strands burn, his crystallize.
Silver breath floods the space as his strands strike, freezing flesh mid-motion, locking limbs and torsos into brutal stillness. His hand closes around an iced core and crushes.
The sound is sharp.
Final.
Around us, the afterimages learn.
They stop meeting resistance head-on.
They pass through it.
Silver and gold forms surge forward with lethal intent.
An afterimage grabs an entity and slams it through a bank of seats, stone and flesh giving way together as it passes through, the embedded core shattering on impact.
Another drives its target into a column and carries it straight through, obsidian warping and rupturing as the stone inside the creature fractures mid-motion.
A third pulls its prey downward, dragging it through the floor itself before rising again, leaving only broken essence sealed beneath the Forum.
They do not move through the world.
They use it.
Some roar, dual-voiced and thunderous, the sound slamming into the stones with surgical intent. Fractures spiderweb through the embedded cores.
The entities recoil.
Then they change.
The skins split.
Not cleanly.
They ruptured.
Flesh peeled away in wet, uneven tears, sloughing from frames that were never meant to wear it. What stood revealed beneath was wrong in proportion and intent. Their upper bodies warped thick with obscene muscle, lower limbs too long and bent outward, joints angled as if crouching was their natural state.
Where faces should have been, there was only smooth, stretched skin, drawn tight over nothing.
Then the mouths opened.
Upside down.
Wide.
Lined with gapped, razor teeth that gleamed through saliva and heat.
Sores split across their bodies, blistering open as hellfire seeped through, dripping to the floor in molten drops that scorched obsidian on contact.
Claire took a single step back.
Alec exhaled sharply beside her, lightning stuttering once along his arms before settling again.
"As Jamey would say," he muttered, eyes locked forward, voice flat with disbelief, "I would like to formally apologize to every nightmare I've ever mocked."
The afterimages did not react.
They did not flinch.
They did not shift.
Then the nightmares screamed.
The sound blinds us.
Light fractures across my vision, a sharp white flare that steals clarity for a heartbeat. I hear Alec curse. Feel Marcus stagger.
They move fast.
On arms and twisted legs, they lunge straight for Claire.
"Hell no," I snarl.
My strands snap outward, forming a spinning lattice between her and the charge. Seth is already there, slamming one creature down with brutal force, hauling it up by the torso and hurling it straight into Alec's lightning.
The impact detonates.
Marcus's spirits surge through the smoke, tearing into another, ripping it apart piece by piece.
They keep coming.
Hands reach.
Too close.
I do not let them near me.
My strands become weapons and shield both, striking, coiling, and severing them. Seth wades forward, bare chest glowing gold, breath frosting the air with every exhale. He slaps one demon aside like it weighs nothing, and then drives another into a pillar that collapses under the impact.
Minutes pass.
It feels like hours.
Then there are fewer.
Twenty.
Fourteen.
Eleven.
Some try to flee.
The doors explode inward.
Eric hits the space like a wall.
His shield slams forward, divine force throwing the remaining creatures backward in a single brutal sweep. Gabriel appears beside him, authority snapping into place as the last resistance breaks.
Silence crashes down.
The team stands, exhausted. Breathing hard. Burned. Bloodied.
I remain standing at the back of everyone.
Then the pain hits.
It is different.
Deeper.
Unmistakable.
The pressure hits again.
Harder this time.
It coils low and unforgiving, stealing breath, stealing balance, stealing patience. I fold forward with a sharp gasp, reaching for something and nothing at the same time.
Seth is beside me in seconds. I clutch him without apology, my fingers locking into his arm with a strength that surprises even me.
He hisses.
I do not care.
Light answers.
It comes through the windows first.
Gold spills across the sky beyond the Forum, the color of a sun about to set. The light does not blaze or burn. It settles instead into a deep, molten warmth, the kind that lingers just before night claims the world. The clouds catch it and hold it, layered and rich, as though the sky itself has chosen to wait.
Then silver arrives.
It threads through the gold in sweeping arcs, moving like something alive. Birds cry out as it passes, wings slicing the air as they surge past the windows in tight formation, silver light trailing their movement like a living ribbon. The silver curves, loops, dives, then rises again, pulling the flock upward before vanishing back into the sky.
Dogs howl somewhere far beyond the walls.
Close. Distant. Everywhere.
Inside the Forum, small things scatter.
Mice vanish into cracks. Insects flee the chamber in frantic streams, abandoning the space as if instinct itself has decided they do not belong in the presence of what is happening here.
The gold shifts.
The silver follows.
Both turn inward.
They pass through the windows.
Toward me.
The first contraction crests and I scream, raw and unfiltered, the sound ripping out of me without restraint. My knees buckle and Seth catches me fully this time, arms locked around me as I shake.
The light shatters.
Gold and silver break apart midair, fragments scattering like glass caught in slow motion.
Then they gather again.
They pull inward.
Downward.
Into me.
Into us.
I feel it. The pull. The pressure. The gathering force that has nothing to do with power and everything to do with arrival.
Seth's breath stutters.
He looks at me like the world has narrowed to this single moment.
His hands tremble as they slide to my back, then to my stomach, reverent and terrified all at once.
"They're coming," he whispers, voice breaking. "Max… they're really coming."
Another contraction slams into me before I can answer.
It hits lower. Deeper. Meaner.
The kind that does not warn. It takes everything from you.
I snarl something deeply unholy, grab him again, and squeeze with intent.
"Do not let go," I warn through clenched teeth. "If you do, I will find you and I will end you."
Silver light fractures around me.
The aura that once pushed outward recoils, snapping back toward my skin in uneven pulses. Glyphs stutter, their movement faltering, then sinking beneath flesh as if pulled by a gravity only I can feel. The strands unravel, dissolving into dust that never reaches the ground. It turns instead, pouring inward.
My breath breaks.
Pain plays its part, but something else claims me fully now.
My body has chosen its priority.
The Living Scripture goes quiet.
Its voice does not disappear.
It redirects.
"You pick the strangest moments to play dead," I murmur.
My fingers curl tighter at my side.
"I see you."
Gold threads peel away from the air and sweep toward my belly, drawn there with relentless certainty. Silver follows, slower, gentler, like hands smoothing what gold has torn open. The space around us releases its hold, pressure easing as the power abandons the room for something far smaller. Far more dangerous.
Seth feels it.
His arms tighten instinctively, bracing against me, bracing for me.
Jamey's voice cuts through the chaos, pitched high and frantic.
"What are you waiting for," he shouts. "The end of the world. Call an ambulance. Call ten."
Alec makes a noise.
A strangled, undignified sound.
Then he tips sideways.
Marcus catches him just before he hits the floor.
"Of course," Claire mutters. "Now."
Another wave hits.
The gold and silver shatter again, breaking apart with the force of it, light scattering through the chamber before reassembling and driving inward once more.
The eight afterimages dissolve at the same instant, silver forms collapsing into streaks of light that rush back to me, sinking into my skin and my breath as the contraction crests.
Each contraction does it.
Break.
Gather.
Enter.
Seth presses his forehead to mine, eyes shining, breath uneven.
Silver frost blooms with every exhale he takes, spilling from his lips in slow, deliberate plumes. It does not drift away. It clings, curling back toward him as if the air itself has learned his shape. The gold along his skin deepens, brightening beneath the strain, while the black glyphs carved into his chest and arms throb once, then settle into a steadier rhythm.
Something in him locks into place.
The panic fades from his face. What remains is focus. Resolve. The quiet certainty of someone who understands exactly what is being asked of him.
Seth leans close, voice low.
"I wish I could take this from you."
I let out a short, breathless laugh.
"Careful," I manage. "You'll regret saying that."
His smile flickers, fierce and fond.
"It would be worth it."
His mouth curves, just barely, and he draws another breath. The silver answers again, thicker now, wrapping around us both like a vow given form.
Outside, the sky holds its breath.
Inside, the world adjusts.
And nothing, not Heaven, not earth, not power or prophecy, is prepared for what comes next.
----------------------------------------------------------
Nothing here is finished.
What was taken cannot be returned.
What was given cannot be undone.
What has begun will not wait.
The reckoning is no longer theoretical.
Proceed with care.