Lyssa healed slower than anyone expected.
Not because the wound was deep.
But because it was unnatural.
The Hollow hadn't just torn flesh. It had cut meaning—a fragment of her existence, her place in the Weave, had been unstitched. Even divine restoration magic might have failed.
And yet, Kael refused to leave her side.
For three days, he never once stepped outside her recovery chamber.
He read her stories from Earth.
He built pain relievers from repurposed Weave circuits.
He re-coded healing arrays until the Weave itself obeyed his math, not the gods' decree.
And on the fourth day, her fingers twitched.
On the fifth, she woke.
On the sixth, she laughed.
Not from joy.
From awe.
"You're more dangerous than you think," she whispered, weak but smiling.
Kael smiled back. "Then it's a good thing I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to change the rules."
---
Outside, the Sanctuary evolved.
The Beacon of Clarity—Kael's invention—had pulsed twice since the Hollow's retreat. Each pulse had traveled through the Weave, awakening dormant memories in relics and ancient machines.
And each time, it had drawn more people.
Some were Learners, burned out and broken.
Some were former Talents, exiled for treason, stripped of their divine rights.
One was neither—a half-blind child with no Weave signature, but who solved a logic pattern Kael left on the gates faster than anyone else had.
Kael welcomed all of them.
No oaths.
No prayers.
Just one rule:
> "You must think."
---
The sanctuary had names now.
"Weavemind."
"Kael's Bastion."
"The Questioner's Keep."
Kael didn't care what they called it.
He only cared that it worked.
That people learned.
That the Weave bent when it was understood—not worshipped.
And slowly, they began to understand.
Power wasn't granted.
It was built.
One insight at a time.
---
Elsewhere, in a golden palace that floated above the Holy Cradle of Light, High Matron Velra Virelen stared at her daughter's last known trace on the Weave.
The Hollow had touched her.
And she had lived.
Worse: she had defied it.
"Where is she?" Velra asked, again.
The seers bowed lower, bleeding from their eyes as they tried to trace the rebellious Myth-tier.
"She is surrounded by silence," one said. "Not hiding. Shielded."
"She is not alone," said another. "She follows a... void-mind."
Velra turned.
"Void-mind?"
"A bearer with no divine pattern. No root. A foreign anomaly."
Velra's jaw tensed.
"A fluke?"
"No," the seer whispered.
"A founder."
Velra's eyes went cold.
And for the first time in decades, she left the tower.
Not as a Matron.
But as a mother.
---
Kael didn't know she was coming.
But the Weave stirred again.
Not like when the Hollow came.
This was subtler. Focused. Intelligent.
A hand trying to untangle his work.
He didn't panic.
He adjusted.
He laced the next Weave array with paradox spirals—self-sustaining questions that looped when tampered with.
A divine eye tried to peer in.
It blinked.
And lost context.
Kael smiled.
His school was holding.
For now.
---
That night, Lyssa walked with him through the garden dome. Stars spun slowly above. Her movements were careful, but steady.
"I was taught," she said, "that anything not born from god is lesser. Dirt. Mistake."
Kael looked at her. "And now?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But I think… if the gods fear you, maybe they're not gods. Just… gatekeepers."
Kael was quiet a long time.
Then:
"What would you build, if the gates were gone?"
Lyssa's voice was soft.
"A way out."
He nodded.
And far beneath them, the Weave recorded their vow.