Night did not fall the way it used to.
Darkness no longer descended like a blanket drawn gently over the world, softening edges and muting distance. Instead, it seeped slowly into the plains, pooling in the cracks that split the earth and settling into the hollows where stone had buckled under unseen strain. The sky above remained thin, a deepening gray rather than true black, as though something beyond the world prevented the heavens from closing completely.
They had walked until the land dipped into a shallow basin ringed with jagged stone. It was not shelter in any human sense, yet the trembling beneath the ground felt weaker there, and the distortions in the air thinned just enough that breathing did not feel like inhaling through water.
He stopped without announcement.
Lyria understood anyway.
Her legs gave out the moment she allowed them to. She lowered herself onto a slab of cold stone and leaned back, the rough surface pressing through the fabric at her shoulders. Only then did she notice how badly she was shaking. The battle, the sky breaking, the soldiers, the arrows — all of it had been held at a distance by urgency. Now the quiet left room for it to return.
Her body remembered what her mind had been forced to ignore.
She wrapped her arms around herself, though the chill that crept through her was not entirely from the air. Every muscle ached. Her hands felt stiff, her fingers still marked faintly with dried blood she had not yet washed away.
He remained standing.
The distortions that once rippled wildly around him had drawn inward since the soldiers fled, tightening into something like a perimeter rather than bleeding into the world. It was not stability, not truly, but it was containment.
And she knew, with a certainty that unsettled her, that the difference existed because she remained near him.
The realization settled like weight in her chest.
"You didn't kill them," she said after a long stretch of silence, her voice softer than the wind that slid between the stones.
"They were not necessary to eliminate."
"That's not what I meant."
He did not respond, but she felt his attention shift toward her, subtle as a change in pressure.
"They came knowing they might die," she continued. "Most people would have run."
"Running would not have altered the outcome."
She let out a tired breath.
"That doesn't make it meaningless."
The sky pulsed faintly, a ripple too distant to make sound yet impossible to ignore. The air grew thinner for a moment, then steadied, like fabric pulled taut and released.
He noticed.
She could tell by the way the distortions around him tightened slightly, not outward, but inward, as though he drew the strain toward himself.
"They are observing more closely," he said.
Her stomach tightened.
"Because of you?"
"Because of the deviation."
She knew what he meant.
Her.
The thought should have sent her into panic, yet the fear felt distant now, dulled by exhaustion and the weight of everything already lost. Instead, another thought surfaced, quieter but harder to dismiss.
"What happens if they decide to fix it?" she asked.
"The correction will be absolute."
She closed her eyes briefly.
That was not an answer that left room for survival.
Wind slid across the basin, carrying fine dust that spiraled between the stones before settling again. She could feel the ground beneath her, solid but not entirely still, like a body struggling to remain upright.
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"You could leave me," she said. "If I'm the problem."
The air stilled.
Not violently, not with the crushing weight she had felt before, but with a sudden absence of motion, like the world had paused to hear his answer.
"That action would increase instability," he said.
"That's not what I meant."
His gaze met hers.
For a moment, she felt as though he stood at the edge of something he did not fully see, a concept beyond the laws he understood. She wondered if the idea of leaving someone for their own sake was a logic he had never needed.
"Your presence reduces collapse," he said.
She gave a small, humorless smile.
"That's still not what I meant."
Silence returned, but it no longer felt empty. It felt crowded with things neither of them knew how to say.
Her head felt heavy against the stone. She tilted it back and watched the sky, the strange dimness overhead that refused to become night.
"I'm tired," she admitted quietly.
He regarded her as though fatigue were a phenomenon to observe rather than a state to share.
Her breathing slowed despite herself. The tension that had kept her upright since the sky broke finally loosened, and sleep tugged at her awareness, thin and uneasy.
She fought it at first. Sleeping near him, in a world that felt half-broken, seemed like surrendering to danger.
But her body had already given what it could.
Her eyes drifted shut.
She did not hear him move, but she felt the shift in the air.
The distortions around him tightened further, not spreading outward in unstable waves but forming a quiet boundary around the space where she rested. The trembling beneath the ground softened, cracks halting their slow advance as though the world itself hesitated to disturb that small circle of stillness.
Above, the sky remained thin and watchful.
Time passed without measure.
Far in the distance, something moved across the horizon, a faint pulse of light that did not belong to stars. It spread slowly, like a ripple across dark water, searching.
It did not reach the basin.
Not tonight.
He stood without motion, gaze fixed outward, awareness stretched across land and sky alike. The presence that had once crushed indiscriminately now held its shape with deliberate restraint, as though something fragile rested within its reach.
The night deepened.
Wind slipped through the broken stones, carrying the scent of dust and distant ruin. Somewhere far away, rock shifted, and a structure already weakened finally collapsed with a dull, echoing sound.
She did not stir.
Her breathing remained slow, uneven at times, as though dreams brushed against memory she could not escape. Once, her brow tightened faintly, and her fingers curled against the stone, but she did not wake.
The distortions around him thinned further.
Not gone.
Contained.
Above them, the faint ripple in the sky paused, as though whatever watched had met resistance it did not understand.
The basin remained untouched.
And though she would never know it, he did not look away from her for the entire night.