The column of pale golden light descended without fanfare, settling softly upon the crude stone altar at the heart of the Luminant Plains. It stirred no wind, carried no overwhelming divine pressure—just a faint, familiar hum that rippled across the surrounding fields.
Human farmers hoeing the soil glanced up for a single breath, then bent back to their rows without a word. Elven tenders at the edge of the sunwood grove paused only long enough to tuck a sapling into place before resuming their work. From the dwarf holds further west, the steady clang-clang of hammers on anvils never once faltered.
Their god had come calling again. Nothing to get excited about. She'd probably drop off another set of farming or forging notes, nag them about sacrifices for a bit, then vanish back into the sky. A nuisance more than a deity, really.
Laia's form solidified atop the altar, and her mouth tightened at the sight before her.
The rough-hewn stone structure was the only one of its kind in the entire kingdom, and it had only been built at all because she'd traded a improved smelting recipe for its construction. Weeds pushed up through cracks in the base, a thin layer of dust coated the flat top, and cobwebs strung thick across the corners. Not a single offering lay upon it—not a loaf of bread, not a shard of ore, not even a handful of dried herbs.
She sighed, brushing a fleck of dust from her sleeve. If she didn't need an anchor point for stable descents, they'd never have bothered to build even this much.
Turning her gaze eastward, toward the jagged mountain range that split the twin realms, she lifted into the air in a blur of faint gold. She kept her divine aura pressed down to a minimum, well aware how little patience her subjects had for grand, rumbling displays of power.
Below her, the land stretched out in two stark halves. To her left, golden fields rolled toward sun-dappled forests, smoke curling up from human homesteads and dwarf holds alike. To her right, the soil deepened to rich black, volcanic peaks glowed faintly on the horizon, and perpetual twilight hung over the Umbral Realm. The mountains straddling the divide were dragon territory—neutral ground, and home to the strongest single force in her kingdom.
She touched down at the mouth of the Dragon's Rest valley without a sound.
Perched atop the largest sun-warmed boulder, a massive bronze-scaled dragon lay coiled in loose slumber. His leathery wings were folded tight to his sides, each scale dull and burnished from years of wind and void ash, and his great horned head rested upon his forepaws. At the faint brush of divine energy, one slitted amber eye cracked open.
It was her. Again.
The dragon lord huffed a warm breath that stirred the dust at his feet, his expression plain exasperation. Did this deity have nothing better to do than drop by four times a day? He'd seen village elders with less free time on their hands.
Without bothering to rise, he flicked his spiked tail and sent a boulder the size of a millwheel hurtling straight toward her. It was no serious attack—he knew full well no mortal weapon could harm a god within their own kingdom. It was simply the fastest way to say you are bothering me.
Laia lifted one hand. The stone hung motionless in midair for a heartbeat, then dissolved into fine sand that drifted away on the breeze.
She stepped forward, her dark expression matching the storm clouds of the Umbral Realm.
This was hardly the first time her own subjects had tried to drive her off. She remembered her very first descent vividly: the moment her light had touched the earth, humans had nocked arrows, elves had woven battle spells, dwarves had charged with hammers raised, and this very dragon had lunged straight for her with jaws wide open.
It was the expected response, really. Creatures born of raw, handwritten divine script, unshaped by the faith-binding life-seeds used by proper gods, had no innate reverence for their creator. They saw only an unknown stranger dropping out of the sky. It had taken hours of talking—and demonstrating that none of their attacks could so much as scratch her—before they'd lowered their weapons long enough to listen.
She'd told them then that she was their god, that offerings and prayer would grant her the power to shield and prosper them.
They'd laughed in her face.
Why would they waste time on rituals when they could barely find enough food to last the week? Worse, formal proper worship drew upon the life force of the faithful, leaving an entire clan weak and listless for five full days. In a land where a void tide came every seven years, five days of weakness was a death sentence.
So Laia had set aside her divine pride. She'd learned farming from the academy textbooks, metallurgy from the library archives, herbalism and basic cultivation from every scroll she could get her hands on, and she'd passed every scrap of it down to them. Survival first, faith second. It had worked, after a fashion. Mortality rates had dropped. Population had grown. They'd even started thriving, in their own rough way.
Faith, though, had never grown at all.
"I am the Silent Sovereign," she intoned, drawing herself up to her full height and letting her voice roll with the faint echo of ancient divine power. "I have granted you life and the means to thrive. Offer up your faith, and I shall lead you to glory and plenty."
The dragon lord blinked slowly.
Great. Another speech.
He rumbled deep in his chest, the sound like boulders grinding together, and his tail thumped once against the stone. "Speak plain. You're giving me a headache. Either you've got new instructions or you're here to beg again. Get on with it."
Laia's grand pose deflated instantly.
"Two hundred years," she said, sharp and frustrated. "It has been two full centuries since your last proper offering. I am running out of divinity. I am this close to starving out of the sky. Can you all just—perform one ritual? Even a small one?"
The dragon stared at her.
He'd seen stray hounds with more dignity than this deity.
"Two hundred years ago was the last one," he said dryly. "And don't act like it's been so very long. For you, that's what—two hundred days? Hardly an age."
"Two hundred days of burning through every scrap of power I have!" she snapped, stepping closer. "And don't pretend that last ritual counted. You laid out dead branches and river stones as offerings. You chanted twice and walked away five minutes later. There wasn't an ounce of actual reverence in it. I got barely enough divinity back to cover the cost of coming down here!"
The dragon shrugged, as much as a creature his size could shrug. "You're still here. You can hold out a while longer. Wait until after the next void tide. We'll have more to spare then."
"I can't hold out!"
There was a flicker of golden light, and in an instant she was perched directly atop the broad ridge of his skull, sitting cross-legged right between his horns.
"I'm not moving," she declared, as firmly as a child staking claim to a favorite rock. "Not until you agree to hold a proper sacrifice. I'll sit here through your sunning, through your naps, through the next void tide. If I starve and this kingdom falls apart, we'll all go down together. See how you like that."
The dragon lord froze.
Then he very slowly, very deliberately, let out a groan so deep it rattled the pebbles on the valley floor.
By the old darkness. She was the creator of this entire world. She was supposed to be majestic, awe-inspiring, untouchable.
Instead she was sitting on his head throwing a tantrum over offerings.
He shook his head hard, twisted his neck, swiped at his own skull with a claw. Nothing worked. She sat there light as a feather, anchored by divine right, completely immovable. After a full minute of fruitless effort, he went still again, resignation heavy in every line of his body.
He would never admit it out loud, but none of the clans truly hated their odd, penniless god anymore.
That early fear and aggression had faded long ago. They knew she wasn't lying about the void. They knew every scrap of skill, every improved tool, every better strain of grain had come from her. She worked as hard as any of them, in her own strange sky-dwelling way. If she died, the barrier would shatter completely, and the void would swallow them all. Self-preservation alone was reason enough to keep her alive.
Faith, though? Reverence? That was harder to muster. She was less a god to them, and more a harried, overworked steward who kept showing up with new blueprints and nagging them about paperwork.
"Fine," he rumbled at last, sighing so hard his wings fluttered. "Fine. Get off my head. I can't make that call alone. I'll call a meeting with the other clan leaders. We'll talk it over. You'll have an answer before the year is out. But in return—you fix the dwarf mine supports. You give the demon clans better grain strains for the volcanic flats. No empty promises."
Laia popped upright so fast she nearly slipped.
"Really?" she said, brightening immediately. "You mean it? No tricking me?"
"I am lord of the dragon clan," he said, with a faint hint of proper dignity. "My word is my bond."
"Good. Great. Perfect." She slid down from his head in a shimmer of gold, landing lightly on the stone before him. "And speaking of things to trade—I found something for you, too. I went through the academy's old archives, adapted a breath-weave technique to match your anatomy. It should let you awaken a proper dragon's breath."
The dragon lord's head snapped up.
All the lazy boredom vanished in an instant. His amber eyes went wide, and he leaned forward so fast his great claws scraped deep furrows in the rock.
"Truly?" he said, low and eager. "How strong is it? Will it work on void beasts?"
"Strong enough to turn the tide of a hunt," she said, planting her hands on her hips with a flicker of pride. "When have I ever given you something that didn't work? Once your clan masters it, your overall combat strength will jump by a full third, at least."
The dragon nodded slowly, thoughtfully.
Then he said, very casually, "Strong enough to hurt a god, then?"
Laia's smile dropped clean off her face.
She stared at him for three long, silent seconds.
"Are you serious?" she said, through gritted teeth. "I spend every waking minute between classes and library trips digging up tricks to keep you all alive, and your first thought is can we use this to kill me? What is wrong with you people?"
"Calm down, calm down." The dragon rumbled a low, amused chuckle, waving a claw dismissively. "I only mean—what if another god comes? Some hostile outsider. It'd be nice to know we could bite back, is all."
Laia huffed, but her shoulders relaxed.
"If an outside god can force their way fully into this kingdom, it means my barrier is already shattered and my coordinates are exposed," she said, more seriously now. "Normally, the world's own rules suppress any intruder. They'd step through weakened, cut off from most of their power. If your people ever grow strong enough to touch the underlying rules of this realm… yes. You could kill a weaker god. Tear them apart, piece by piece."
As she spoke, she gazed out over the valley, past the mountains, to the sprawling lands beyond.
Fields and forges and volcanic hunting grounds. Six different peoples, all mismatched, all stubborn, all just trying to get by in a kingdom that should have failed before it even began. No piety, no prayers, no proper devotion. Just… people. Getting by.
For half a heartbeat, she found she didn't entirely mind.
Then she remembered the third rank looming ahead, and the ten crystals a day it would cost her, and she firmly pushed the soft thought aside.
No. Sacrifices were non-negotiable. She refused to be the first student in the academy's history to starve to death on her own.
A sharp, burning flicker at the edge of her vision cut her thoughts short.
A scarlet warning blazed to life across her sight, brighter and sharper than the last:
ALERT: Void surge detected. Tide magnitude upgraded to moderate. Expected arrival: 48 hours.
Laia went still.
Forty-eight hours. Two full days early. And not a minor tide—a moderate one.
She looked back at the dragon lord, all trace of humor gone.
"Change of plans," she said, tight and steady. "The tide's early. Moderate scale. Round up your clan. Send word to the demon holds and the shadow enclaves. We have work to do."
The dragon's lazy amusement vanished in an instant. He pushed himself up onto all four legs, wings spreading wide enough to blot out the sun, and a low, rumbling growl built in his chest.
"Moderate?" he said. "I'll send runners at once. The dark clans will need to mobilize their tunnel teams."
He beat his wings once, kicking up a storm of dust and stone, and lifted into the air. Laia stepped lightly onto his shoulder as he rose, settling in as he turned toward the volcanic peaks of the Umbral Realm.
Beneath them, the whole kingdom stirred. Horns began to blow in the dwarf holds. Lookouts lit signal fires along the mountain ridges. In the plains, humans began herding livestock toward shelter.
Laia sat silent on the dragon's shoulder, wind whipping her hair back.
Deep in her soul, the faint spark of the ancient silent god warmed, just a little.
A moderate void tide was dangerous. It was risky.
But if they came through it clean?
She might just be able to talk them into that sacrifice after all.