Heaven did not announce the bargain.
It whispered it.
The message did not arrive through a shrine.
It slipped into Kael’s mind between heartbeats as he stood on Blackthorne’s eastern wall watching the supply road die one caravan at a time.
Kneel.
And the world will breathe again.
The words were not thunder.
They were warm.
The kind of warmth that comes after a long winter when you almost forget what cold felt like.
Kael staggered once.
Not from pain.
From the weight of what Heaven was offering.
The terms unfolded without ceremony.
Not as law.
As mercy dressed in mathematics.
Sunreach’s quarantine lifted within hours of submission.
Hearthreach’s awakened would be reclassified as “rehabilitated.”
Trade corridors would reopen.
The sanctioned hunters would withdraw.
The worl
