The ground pulsed.Kael stepped forward. Each footfall sent ripples through the shattered stone beneath him, as though the earth itself recognized what he had become. Fire trailed behind him, not like ordinary flame, but something older—something hungrier. The kind that did not burn wood or flesh, but memory, soul, and time.Aravenna followed close. Her sword shimmered with ghostlight, the blade whispering to the silence left behind by the gods.The sky cracked again. Not thunder—screams. Above, the remnants of divine power warped into veils of colorless light, bleeding across the heavens as if heaven itself were tearing. The new gods were not waiting. They were coming.“Tell me,” Aravenna said behind him, “is that truly you? Or the thing that came back wearing your name?”Kael didn’t stop. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll know me either way.”They crossed the ruin of the old sanctum, its broken pillars now nothing more than jagged teeth jutting from black soil. The bodies of priests and d