Silence.But this time, it wasn’t empty. It watched. Kael stood in the hollow between light and thought, surrounded by a stillness so absolute it rang in his bones.Every breath felt like theft air taken from a world that no longer existed. He looked down at his hands. The gold cracks were deeper now, faintly pulsing.Every beat of his heart sent lines of light crawling across his arms, trying to remind him of what he’d already begun to forget. Her name.He pressed his palm against his chest, whispering it again before the silence could steal it. “Mira.”The word trembled. The stars flickered, uncertain. Then the world shivered. Something beneath the still surface of reality moved a faint tremor rippling outward, as if the universe itself recognized the sound.Kael’s lips curved in a broken smile. “So you still hear me.”He took a step forward. The ground responded sluggishly, shaping itself with every motion each step birthing a trail of molten gold that cooled into glass.The void r

The world was young again. Grass whispered secrets to the wind. Mountains breathed slow, ancient sighs. Rivers murmured lullabies as they carved through sleeping earth.And somewhere between the spaces where thought hadn’t yet learned to exist something listened. Kael wandered.Days or what he thought were days passed in gentle rhythms. The sun rose and fell without meaning, yet he followed it as though it led somewhere familiar. He had built this dawn, but it no longer belonged to him.Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Mira not as she was, but as light in motion. Not a face. A feeling. He touched his chest, half expecting to find her heartbeat there instead of his own. “You’d hate this quiet,” he murmured.The wind stirred in response, carrying the scent of rain and warmth, her warmth. For a fleeting second, he felt her beside him again, laughing, barefoot in the mud, hair streaked with starlight.Then the vision fractured. He stopped walking. The horizon bent slightly, rippling

They fell through color. Not blue or red or gold something deeper, older, like the hue of a thought before it becomes sound.The ocean of dreams roared around them, and Kael could feel every echo of every soul that had ever dared to imagine. It wasn’t water. It was memory liquefied, heavy with meaning.He tried to reach Mira, but the current pulled them apart, spinning them through a thousand mirrored visions. Each reflection showed a different world a thousand versions of their choices, of their mistakes.In one, Mira never died. In another, Kael never learned mercy. In most, the world never survived. He screamed against the tide. “Mira!”A hand caught his wrist. Hers. She was half-drowned in light, hair drifting like threads of fire. “Don’t fight it,” she gasped. “It feeds on struggle.”“What is it?”“The god that dreamed the world,” she said. “The one who made everything before time began.”Kael’s pulse hammered in his ears. “I thought we made this world.”Mira shook her head, her

The world was quiet again. Not the silence of death this was softer, trembling, full of questions that hadn’t learned their answers yet.Dusk spread like spilled wine across the horizon, staining clouds in violet and rose. The newborn god sat between Kael and Mira, knees drawn to its chest, watching the sun’s slow descent with wide, wondering eyes.It looked almost human now skin faintly luminous, hair like strands of liquid silver but its gaze carried the weight of everything that had ever existed. Mira watched it carefully. “Does it understand?”Kael’s expression was unreadable. “It’s learning.”He crouched beside the being. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, gesturing at the horizon. The god tilted its head. “The edge.”Mira smiled faintly. “Not quite. It’s evening. It means the day is ending, and night begins.”The god frowned. “Ending? Why should things end?”Kael hesitated. The question was simple. The answer wasn’t. “Because,” he said slowly, “if nothing ends, nothing begins

Days began to mean something. The first light of Aelion turned into hours, and hours became rhythm. The people those born from tears and soil learned to count time by the length of shadows and the distance between breaths.Kael and Mira watched from a rise above the valley, where the rivers split into silver veins that shimmered beneath the morning sun.Smoke curled upward from where the mortals had gathered, the first signs of shelter. “They’re building,” Mira whispered.Kael smiled faintly. “Of course they are. Memory always wants shape.”Below, figures moved with purpose. They lifted stones, stacked them, bound them with vines and clay. Their laughter carried easily on the wind a rhythm older than language.Some sang as they worked; others traced symbols into the dirt, the beginnings of stories. “They don’t know what they’re making,” Mira said.“They don’t need to,” Kael replied. “Creation doesn’t wait for understanding.”The god stood a few steps behind them, quiet. Its silver eye