The first sign that Heaven had been wounded was not lightning.
It was loss of rhythm.
The sky over the crater where Frostclaw once stood did not stabilize the way shattered land usually did. The negative space left behind pulsed unevenly, like a heartbeat that had forgotten its tempo. Gravity stuttered. Wind bent where there was nothing to bend around.
And above it all—the stars began to drift.
Not in their ancient paths.
In avoidance.
The gods were no longer watching from certainty.
They were reacting.
Kael did not wake when I called his name.
He lay against blackened stone where the extinction vector had burned through him, his skin blistered in strange, pale fractal scars that refused to heal like any wound I had ever seen.
“Kael,” I whispered again, pressing my forehead to hi
