The silver light faded slowly.
Athena knelt on the cracked floor, her hands still pressed against the stone where the map table had been. The lines were gone. The fractures, the stress points, the anchors—all of it dissolved into memory. She could still see them behind her eyes, traced in light, but the map itself was dead.
Hermes stood beside her, silent.
"The fractures aren't just in Heaven," Athena said quietly.
"What do you mean?"
She looked up at him. Her eyes were red, tired, but sharp.
"The crack that opened under the table. It wasn't random. It was a reaction. Something down there—something below Heaven—is shifting."
"Below Heaven?"
"The mortal world." Athena stood slowly. Her legs ached. "The realms are bleeding into each other faster than I thought. The fractures aren't spreading just because the Tribunal is gone. They're spreading because something is pulling on them from the other side."
Hermes's wings twitched. "What could pull on a fracture?"
