The retaliation was quiet.
No thunder split the sky.No armies marched.
Instead, the city woke to absence.
Markets did not open. Wells ran dry. Messengers forgot where they were going. Names slipped from tongues mid-sentence, leaving people staring at one another in confusion.
Aerun felt it before he saw it.
The warmth at his back tightened—not warning, not urging—but bracing.
"They're punishing memory," Lyrae's voice whispered.
Aerun froze.
He turned slowly.
She stood beside him on the empty street, half-solid, her outline flickering like a reflection disturbed by water. Her eyes were sharp, focused—but her shadow lagged behind her movements.
"Lyrae," he breathed.
"Don't touch me," she said quickly. "Not yet."
She looked around, jaw tightening. "They're collapsing minor records first. Shopkeepers. Messengers. Anyone small enough not to be noticed all at once."
Aerun clenched his fists. "They're erasing people."
"Not killing," Lyrae corrected. "Worse. Removing relevance."
A scream echoed down the street.
Aerun ran.
They found the man slumped against a wall near the river—middle-aged, clothes plain, eyes wide and unfocused.
"I had a wife," he whispered to no one. "I know I did."
Aerun knelt in front of him. "What's your name?"
The man opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Lyrae knelt too, hovering slightly above the ground. "They've detached his identifiers. He exists—but without anchors."
Aerun looked up, fury burning. "Fix it."
Lyrae shook her head. "I can't. Not fully."
The man began to cry.
Aerun stood.
The warmth surged.
"No," Lyrae snapped. "If you push now—"
"I won't push," Aerun said quietly. "I'll place."
He stepped forward and stood beside the man.
He did not reach back.
He did not loosen the cloth.
He simply stood.
The world bent—not away, but around him.
The man gasped sharply.
"My name," he said suddenly. "It's—"
The moment snapped.
Pressure slammed down like a hammer.
Aerun was thrown backward, crashing into stone hard enough to crack it. Pain exploded through his ribs.
Lyrae screamed.
The man collapsed again, eyes empty.
"You see?" a voice said.
Talrek Vos stepped into view at the end of the street, flanked by Wardens.
"This is the limit of what you can do without consequence," Talrek said. "You interfere, we escalate."
Aerun pushed himself upright, blood at the corner of his mouth. "You're terrorizing your own people."
Talrek's face hardened. "We are preserving coherence."
Lyrae rose, her form flickering violently. "You're afraid he's teaching the world to remember without you."
Talrek looked at her—really looked.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"I was never gone," she replied.
Talrek raised his hand.
The Wardens moved.
Reality locked.
The street froze mid-breath. People halted mid-step, eyes glassy, caught between moments.
Aerun felt the cage form instantly—refined, perfect, learned from every previous failure.
This time, there was no space.
Talrek stepped closer. "This ends now."
Aerun met his gaze.
"No," he said.
He reached back.
Not to loosen.
To draw.
Just an inch.
The cloth parted.
The silence did not bloom.
It fell.
Everything stopped.
Not frozen.
Unapplied.
The Wardens vanished—not destroyed, but removed from relevance. Talrek staggered back, gasping as his sigil shattered into fragments of light.
The street returned in pieces—sound snapping back unevenly, motion resuming out of sync.
Aerun dropped to one knee, shaking violently.
The cloth snapped back into place.
Lyrae stared at him in terror and awe. "Aerun… you crossed it."
He looked up at her, eyes burning.
"They didn't give me a choice."
Talrek lay against the wall, breathing hard, horror etched into his face.
"That wasn't power," he whispered. "That was… permission loss."
Aerun forced himself to his feet.
"This ends," he said.
Talrek laughed weakly. "No. Now it begins."
Above them, the sky cracked—not open, but misaligned.
Far below the world, something ancient shifted its weight.
Not counting anymore.
Watching.