The light did not strike Ashkar. It hesitated, and that alone terrified Kael more than annihilation ever could.
Divine force did not pause unless something disrupted certainty, and the lattice beneath the city was doing exactly that. The beam of impossible radiance thinned, its edges blurring, as if reality itself was arguing with the command behind it.
Kael stood at the cavern’s mouth, the seal burning like a second heart, his breath slow and deliberate. Above him, the sky warped under pressure, but the city still lived, barely.
“They’re recalculating,” Kael said.
The elders moved fast. Refugees scattered through pre-cut tunnels, ancient escape paths carved long before gods learned how to rewrite fate. Children were lifted, the wounded supported, wings unfurled in silence. No panic—on
