The storm came without warning.
By nightfall, the sky was a violent bruise, veins of lightning carving the horizon as thunder shook the very bones of the keep. The guards had long since taken shelter, but Damian stood alone in the courtyard, watching the clouds spiral like a wound that refused to close.
He knew what it meant.
The old world was stirring, pressing against the seams of the present, and the first god—Veyrinthal—was no longer dreaming.
Inside the keep, Lyra felt it too. The air in her chamber had turned heavy, shimmering faintly with the taste of iron and ash. The silver lines along her collarbone throbbed with heat, spreading farther each time her heart beat. She could hear whispers in the storm—low, guttural, layered with too many voices to belong to any one being.
When she tried to listen closer, the world tilted. The floor beneath her rippled, the walls breathing like lungs. She staggered toward the door, gripping the frame just as Damian burst through it.
