Lincoln's POV:
Waiting does not necessarily imply that nothing is happening.
That was the lie I almost believed. Almost.
After the Mother stepped back—after the Pale Verge was sustained, after fractures stopped widening, after the sky learned how to hold itself again—there was a temptation to call what followed peace. The world felt quieter. Less strained. Like a body finally able to release after holding tension for too long.
But silence is not absence.
It is redistribution.
And redistribution always finds new paths.
For several days after our last return from the Pale Verge, nothing happened at all.
No temporal anomalies.
No divine pressure.
No sudden spikes in fate or magic.
Duskbane breathed easily. The city resumed rhythms that had been interrupted for weeks—markets reopene
