CHAPTER 31: JUDGMENT OF THE BALANCE
The days that followed did not bring battle. They brought silence, and somehow that was worse. Chicago continued to live beneath a sky that looked perfectly normal, while something far beyond it watched with patient certainty. People walked the streets, rebuilt homes, laughed in cafés, and returned to routines they thought had been saved forever. They did not feel the invisible weight pressing against reality itself. They did not know that the peace Rowan had sacrificed everything to create was being measured by beings older than the concept of war. But Kevin felt it every hour. Every sunrise felt like borrowed time. Every quiet night felt like the calm before something too large to imagine. He stood at the center of a city finally healing and could on
