The fire does not fall like judgment.
It arrives like permission.
The sky fractures just after noon.
Not with thunder.
With silence so sudden it steals sound from the valley.
The gray clouds that had shielded Blackthorne ripple once, as if something immense just passed through them without bothering to move the air. Birds drop from the sky mid-flight. Wolves lift their heads, every instinct screaming at once.
Kael’s hand clamps around mine.
“Inside,” he snaps.
Too late.
The fire answers before anyone can run.
It strikes the far ridge first.
A clean, blinding column of white-gold force that does not burn like flame.
It unmakes.
Stone vanishes without smoke. Trees don’t catch fire—they dissolve into drifting ash that never had heat. The ground itself screams as its laws are rewr
