The first thing he did was kneel.
In the morning, beneath the spiraling roots of the sanctuary's gate-tree, with hundreds of stunned eyes watching from shadowed balconies and garden perches, the god who had been born not of will but of vote — knelt.
Not in reverence.
Not in submission.
In curiosity.
He pressed his palm to the soil, fingers splayed, eyes closed. The people held their breath. Not because they feared destruction — but because they didn't know what came next.
Then he whispered:
"It's warm."
And the vines that circled the inner ring of the sanctuary bloomed.
Every flower opened.
Every leaf turned toward him.
Not to worship.
But to listen.
He stood.
And began to walk.
The sanctuary adjusted slowly.
It wasn't easy to watch divinity move through a place built on escaping it.
People who had once lived under god-kings, blood-rain, celestial laws, and prophecy had come here to forget all of that. Now, their children played in the streets with a being who had never ascended, never punished, never demanded a single sacrifice.
He just… existed.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't eat.
But he listened.
He sat for hours in the seedfields, learning how crops rotated with the Shard's pulse.
He watched the gardeners sing to the rootvines, then hummed along—off-key, but earnest.
He asked children questions they didn't know the answers to, then offered them answers they didn't know they needed.
He laughed when the river fish darted between his toes.
He cried when a pregnant soulbound guardian died in childbirth, not because he couldn't stop it, but because he understood why he shouldn't.
He was not perfect.
And that made him possible.
Liora observed quietly.
She walked the sanctuary more than usual, not to protect it, but to witness.
She did not interfere when people knelt. Nor when they refused.
When the Dissonant delegates bowed to him and asked what he desired, he responded:
"To learn how not to desire anything at all."
And they wept, because it echoed their own exile.
When the Hollow-King emissary arrived with chains made of vow-iron and asked if he could be bound for safety, he took the chains, crushed them in his hands… and then used the shards to build windchimes that sang only in silence.
The emissary left without a word.
Liora did not stop him.
She simply looked at the chimes.
And listened.
The twins kept their distance at first.
They watched from the spiral walkways, one standing in sun, the other under shadow.
The god never approached them.
But he looked at them often.
With recognition.
With respect.
On the seventh day, the dark twin spoke to him.
He was sitting by the sanctuary's western fountain, watching birds dive through droplets.
She sat beside him without announcement.
He didn't turn.
"You are not like us," she said.
"I was never meant to be," he replied.
"But you want to be."
"Yes."
She looked at him carefully. "Why?"
He smiled faintly. "Because you chose to be."
That night, she told her sister.
And the light-born nodded.
The next morning, she approached him.
He was lying on the sanctuary's outer wall, staring at the stars long after sunrise.
"You're wrong," she said.
He sat up. "About?"
"Desire," she said. "You think the goal is to want nothing."
He tilted his head.
"But it's not," she said. "It's to want without taking. To long… and still let go."
He said nothing for a long time.
Then, "That sounds hard."
She smiled. "That's how you know it's right."
By the end of the second week, the god had a name.
Not one he gave himself.
One the people whispered when they thought he couldn't hear.
Caelen.
From the old tongue.
It meant: the center of a decision that cannot be reversed.
He accepted it.
Not because he needed it.
But because they did.
And so Caelen became real.
Not just born.
Believed.
But peace is a fragile thing.
And Caelen's presence did more than inspire.
It divided.
The sanctuary received its first true exile in over a year: a teacher who called Caelen a false prophet. She refused to teach her students the story of his birth. She scrawled words in ink across the garden stones:
"When gods walk, we kneel again."
She was not punished.
Liora let her go.
But the message remained.
And others read it.
And wondered.
One night, Caelen came to Liora's chamber.
She was drinking bitterroot tea, surrounded by maps and missives — the weight of the world once again creeping onto her shoulders.
He stood in the doorway.
Silent.
She didn't look up.
"You're wondering if they'll turn on you," she said.
"I'm wondering if I'll turn on them."
That made her look up.
He sat across from her, eyes glowing faintly — not from power, but from question.
"I don't want to rule," he said.
"I know."
"I don't want to hurt."
"I believe you."
"But I feel something changing. Inside."
Liora said nothing.
Because she felt it too.
Not darkness.
Not anger.
But… mass.
Caelen was beginning to become dense with belief.
And belief, even when kind, is heavy.
"What should I do?" he asked.
Liora's answer was simple.
"Leave."
He blinked.
"Not forever," she said. "But long enough to know whether your peace comes from within… or from how they look at you."
Caelen stood.
Nodded.
And in that moment, the sanctuary exhaled.
Not from fear.
From space.
He left that night.
No fanfare.
No warning.
Just a single word carved into the sanctuary's gatepost:
Learning.
And the next morning…
The vines stopped blooming.
Not dying.
Just… waiting.
Liora stood at the gate long after he was gone.
Vaerion joined her.
"You just sent away a god," he said.
She didn't answer.
He touched her shoulder. "Was it hard?"
She turned to him.
And for the first time in a long while…
She looked tired.
"Yes," she said.
"But it was right."
He looked down the road, into the horizon.
"And if he never comes back?"
Liora took a breath.
"Then the world will know what kind of god walks away… instead of demanding to be followed."