By the third day, people stopped asking when magic would return to normal.
They asked different questions instead.
How far does the corruption spread?
What still works?
Who is in charge now?
Lareth had always been a city held together by spellwork as much as stone. Without magic behaving, even simple things—water flow, lifted bridges, ward-lit streets—became problems that demanded muscle, planning, and time. Things people had forgotten how to rely on.
Aren spent the morning hauling rubble with his bare hands.
He could have ordered others to do it. Several guards still looked to him automatically, mistaking decisiveness for authority. But Aren had learned long ago that survival began with example. When people saw you bleed alongside them, they listened longer.
His injured shoulder burned with every movement. The Changed's strike had left more than bruising; faint lines of dark blue still traced his skin like frozen veins. A healer had looked once and shaken her head.
"I won't touch that," she'd said. "Not with magic the way it is."
So Aren worked through the pain and said nothing.
Near the western wall, Kael was arguing with a group of surviving mages.
"Casting is not forbidden," Kael said, voice tight but controlled. "It's dangerous. There's a difference."
A woman with singed sleeves snapped back, "Easy for you to say. Your spells didn't turn your apprentice inside out."
Kael flinched. Aren saw it even from a distance. Guilt sat on Kael like a second spine—rigid, unyielding.
Aren wiped dust from his hands and walked over.
"We're not forcing anyone to cast," Aren said. "But we also won't survive if we pretend magic doesn't exist."
A murmur rippled through the group.
One of the older mages, gray-bearded and hollow-eyed, looked at Aren. "And who decided that?"
Aren met his gaze evenly. "No one. That's the point."
That answer seemed to unsettle them more than any claim of power.
By midday, scouts returned from beyond the walls.
The news was worse than expected.
Ley markers had shifted miles from their original positions. Entire stretches of farmland were unstable—plants overgrown and rotting at the same time, soil warm and humming. Animals avoided certain areas entirely. Others gathered in unnatural numbers, drawn by something unseen.
And there were sightings.
Not Changed like the ones in the city—these were different. Larger. Less human. Shapes formed from raw magic and memory, as if the world itself were trying to remember what power looked like before rules were written.
Sereth listened in silence as the reports came in.
When the last scout finished, she rested both hands on her staff. "Then we can no longer think in terms of cities alone."
Kael frowned. "You're saying this isn't localized."
"I'm saying the Anchor didn't just break," Sereth replied. "It released pressure that had been building for centuries. This is a reckoning."
Aren leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Reckonings don't wait for permission. We need priorities."
Sereth looked at him. "You think like a general."
"I think like someone who's seen collapse," Aren said. "First comes food. Then safety. Then meaning."
Kael gave a weak smile. "You put meaning last?"
Aren looked at him. "Meaning survives better when people are alive."
That night, the first council met without banners, titles, or ceremony.
They gathered in a warehouse near the docks—stone walls, no lingering enchantments. Torches instead of light orbs. Maps drawn in charcoal instead of illusion.
Merchants sat beside guards. Mages beside farmers. No one was comfortable.
Sereth did not take the central position. That alone said more than any speech.
Aren stood when the noise finally settled.
"We don't rebuild the old world," he said. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."
A stir of unease moved through the room.
"The systems we trusted broke because they were stretched too far," he continued. "Magic included. If we try to force it back into the same shape, it will break us next."
A merchant scoffed. "So what? We abandon it?"
"No," Kael said, standing beside Aren. "We change how we relate to it."
Eyes turned to him—some hopeful, many hostile.
"Magic isn't a servant anymore," Kael said. "It's a force with consequences. Like fire. Like the sea."
A woman in a guard's cloak crossed her arms. "You're asking us to trust the thing that just killed half our city."
Kael swallowed. "I'm asking you to stop pretending it was ever harmless."
Silence followed.
Then Sereth spoke, her voice steady despite everything. "The Conclave believed control was the same as wisdom. We were wrong."
That admission landed heavily. Some looked away. Others stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
"We will form smaller enclaves," Sereth said. "Self-sustaining. Minimal magical dependence. Knowledge shared, not centralized."
Aren nodded. "And scouts. Trained ones. We need to know what's changing before it reaches us."
A young man near the back asked the question everyone feared. "What about the things waking up?"
No one answered immediately.
Aren finally said, "Then we learn how to kill gods."
The words hung in the air—quiet, terrifying, resolute.
After the council broke, Aren found Kael alone by the river.
The water flowed unevenly now, rippling where it shouldn't, freezing at the edges despite the mild air. Kael stared into it like it might offer absolution.
"You really think this can work?" Kael asked without looking up.
Aren stood beside him. "I think pretending otherwise will kill us faster."
Kael nodded slowly. "I keep hearing their voices. The Changed. They weren't lying, you know."
"I know."
"We used magic like it couldn't feel strain," Kael said. "Like it couldn't remember."
Aren glanced at his marked shoulder. "Everything remembers pressure."
Kael looked at him then. "You've lived with this kind of world before."
Aren didn't deny it. "Places where magic thinned. Where spells failed and monsters didn't follow rules. The borderlands taught me one thing—power always collects a debt."
Kael exhaled. "And now it's due."
Across the river, the ground shimmered faintly.
Both of them went still.
From the distortion rose a shape—vast, slow, unfolding like a thought given form. Not hostile. Not yet. But aware.
A presence brushed against Aren's mind, distant and curious.
Not a voice.
A question.
Aren's hand went to his sword.
Somewhere deep in the world, something ancient had realized the leash was gone.
And it was deciding what freedom meant.