Arjun didn't sleep.
He told himself it was because of the adrenaline, or the pain still humming in his bones, or the way the city hadn't quite settled after Nyxara's intervention. That was all true. But it wasn't the reason.
The reason was simpler and worse.
He couldn't stop seeing the look on their faces.
Not fear. Not gratitude.
Relief.
The kind that came from finally deciding you didn't have to carry something anymore.
He sat on the edge of the overpass long after midnight, legs dangling uselessly over nothing, fingers flexing and unclenching like he expected them to still be shaking. The city below him was quieter than usual, but it wasn't calm. It was waiting. You could feel that even without the Conduit field.
Nyxara landed behind him without a sound.
She didn't speak at first.
That alone told him how serious this was.
"They started it again," she said eventually.
Arjun closed his eyes. "Already?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Everywhere it's quiet," she replied. "Which is to say — the dangerous places."
He laughed once, short and tired. "Of course they did."
It wasn't open worship.
Not yet.
No chanting. No altars. No prayers shouted into the dark.
It was worse than that.
It was organization.
Small groups meeting after patrol rotations. People talking in low voices, careful to keep it respectful, careful to keep it reasonable. The language wasn't religious. It was practical.
If she's there, nothing breaks.
If she watches, no one dies.
If things go wrong, she fixes it.
Nyxara showed him without ceremony.
She let him feel it through the bond — the way people's attention subtly reoriented, not toward Arjun anymore, but toward her absence. Toward where she wasn't standing, but might appear if things went bad enough.
It made Arjun's chest hurt in a way he didn't have words for.
"This isn't your fault," Nyxara said quietly.
He shook his head. "I know."
That was the problem.
Mara confirmed it the next morning.
She didn't bother easing into it.
"If this continues," she said, arms folded tight, "you lose them."
Arjun looked up from the table. "To her?"
"To the idea of her," Mara corrected. "Which is worse. You can argue with a person. You can't argue with certainty."
Nyxara leaned against the far wall, unreadable.
"And if I shut it down harder?" Arjun asked.
Mara exhaled. "Then you fracture the territory. Half will cling harder. Half will resent you. Both outcomes are unstable."
Arjun stared at the map, not really seeing it.
"What if I leave?" he asked.
The room went still.
Nyxara's wings twitched once — the only tell.
Mara blinked. "Leave?"
"For a while," Arjun said. "Pull the gravity out of the center. Let people remember how to function."
Mara's voice was careful. "You don't know what happens when you're gone."
"I know exactly what happens," Arjun replied. "They have to choose again."
Nyxara finally spoke. "And if they choose wrong?"
Arjun met her gaze. "Then it was already wrong."
The bond went taut — not strained, not broken.
Just honest.
They didn't announce the decision.
That was deliberate.
Arjun didn't make a speech. Didn't frame it as sacrifice or strategy. He just… stopped showing up everywhere at once.
He delegated. For real this time.
Marcus took patrol coordination fully. Mara took logistics without oversight hovering over her shoulder. Eli stepped back into support instead of response.
And Arjun stayed out of sight.
For one day, it worked.
For two, it almost did.
On the third day, someone panicked.
A warehouse fire. Small. Contained. Fixable.
But the crowd didn't wait.
They called for Nyxara.
She didn't come.
She didn't come because Arjun had asked her not to.
Because this was the test.
The fire burned longer than it should have. Two people were injured. One badly.
When it was over, the anger was immediate.
Not at the system.
Not at the patrols.
At Arjun.
"He's letting this happen."
"He's playing games."
"He's holding her back."
Nyxara felt it ripple through the bond, sharp and bitter.
"They'll force me next time," she said.
Arjun didn't answer right away.
When he did, his voice was quiet. "I know."
That night, he made the decision he'd been circling since the collapse.
He told Nyxara first.
"I'm going to leave the territory," he said. "Completely."
The bond flared — hard this time.
"For how long?" she asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Long enough that they stop expecting me. Long enough that the shape of things resets."
"And me?" she asked.
Arjun swallowed. "You stay."
Silence stretched between them, heavy and dangerous.
"You're asking me to watch them bleed," she said softly.
"I'm asking you not to replace them," he replied.
Her wings flexed once. Twice.
"If I stay," she said, "they will still believe."
"Yes," Arjun said. "But belief without presence fades."
She laughed quietly, not kindly. "You're risking everything."
"I know."
She stepped closer, forehead touching his.
The bond steadied — not warm, not gentle.
Committed.
"You're not wrong," she said. "You're just early."
Arjun left before dawn.
No goodbye tour. No explanation beyond a quiet handoff to Marcus and a message left with Mara that simply said Don't wait for me.
The city didn't notice at first.
That was almost worse.
As he crossed the boundary of the territory, the Conduit field thinned naturally, no resistance, no pull. For the first time in a long while, the world didn't lean toward him.
It felt… lighter.
Behind him, Nyxara watched from the highest rooftop, wings folded, expression unreadable.
Ahead of him, the world waited — fractured, unoptimized, very much alive.
The phone vibrated once in his pocket.
Not a warning.
Not a command.
Just a note.
SYSTEM OBSERVATION:
ANCHOR ABSENCE EVENT — UNMODELED
Arjun smiled faintly.
"Good," he muttered.
Because gods stayed.
Men left.
And somewhere between those two truths was the only space humanity had ever survived in.