She ran until her lungs burned. The fields blurred around her, tall grass tearing at her legs as she stumbled through it, desperate to put distance between herself and the village that had looked at her like a wound. Every breath felt too thin, too sharp. Her chest ached with more than exhaustion.
She did not stop until she reached a low rise of land where the houses were only distant shapes against the hills. There, she collapsed. Her hands pressed into the dirt. Her body shook. For a long moment, she thought she might simply dissolve into the earth and let everything end.
Then she felt it.
A small, flickering thing.
It was faint, almost lost beneath the noise of the world, but once she noticed it she could not ignore it. A fragile pulse, uneven and weak, like a dying ember struggling to stay lit.
A child.
She did not know how she knew. Her power was locked away, buried deep inside her, but something still reached out without her permission. She could feel his life slipping, thinning with every breath.
But he was back in the village.
Her stomach twisted.
"No," she whispered. "I cannot go back."
But the flickering only grew dimmer. Every instinct she had, every law of her being, screamed the same truth: if she turned away now, he would die. And she would have chosen that.
Her legs trembled as she stood. The village waited below, full of fearful eyes and prayers to gods who would not answer.
She turned back anyway.
In the morning light smoke curled from chimneys. Somewhere, a bell rang. Life went on, unaware that something hallowed and dangerous was walking toward it.
The fragile pulse inside her chest guided her. She did not need to see the boy to know where he was. His life flickered weakly through her senses, growing dimmer with every step she took away from him and brighter as she drew closer. By the time she reached the first houses, sweat ran down her spine and her legs trembled. Her body was not made for urgency. It was not made for carrying the weight of another soul.
She followed the pull through narrow streets and past frightened faces until she found a small house with a crooked door. A woman knelt outside, her shoulders shaking as she whispered to someone lying on a blanket.
The boy was barely breathing.
His skin was pale and damp, his chest rising in shallow, uneven motions. Whatever sickness had taken him was already halfway to winning.
The goddess knelt beside him.
"Please," the woman whispered. "He is my only child."
The words struck her harder than any prayer.
She had once held the fate of galaxies in her hands. Now all that mattered was this small, trembling life.
"I do not know what will happen," she said. "But I cannot leave him like this."
She placed her hand against the boy's forehead.
The world shifted.
The air thickened until it felt like something alive was pressing against her skin. Light bent around her fingers. A low vibration filled the space between heartbeats. Power surged, raw and uncontrolled, tearing through the fragile limits of her body. Pain flared bright and sharp behind her eyes.
The boy gasped. Color returned to his cheeks. His breathing steadied. The sickness retreated as if pulled back by invisible hands.
He would live.
But outside, something else paid the price.
Birds fell from the sky.
They dropped in silence, wings frozen, bodies striking the earth in soft, terrible thuds. A dozen small shapes lay scattered across the road, lifeless. The grass around them darkened. Leaves curled and crumbled.
The goddess cried out, pulling her hand away, horror flooding her.
"I did not mean to," she whispered.
The boy's eyes fluttered open. "Mother?"
The woman sobbed and pulled him into her arms.
The people watching saw everything.
They saw a child saved.
They saw the dead birds.
They saw her standing between them.
A miracle.
A curse.
And far above, beyond the fragile sky, the gods finally knew where she was. She had used her power. And that meant they were coming.