The wind in Miren Hollow shifted in small, invisible ways. Not storms or tempests—just a different scent in the air, like the breath before a question is asked.
Eon noticed it first, even if no one else did. He woke before dawn and stood in the garden, staring into the trees. Something felt… off. He couldn't name it. Couldn't explain it. Only that the world felt less certain.
When he turned to go back inside, he saw Nivi sitting on the porch, legs swinging, wrapped in a blanket. She wasn't supposed to be awake yet.
"You're cold," he said softly.
She nodded but didn't complain. "I had a dream. You were in it."
Eon tilted his head. "What kind of dream?"
"You were crying. But not like now. You were huge, like—like a mountain. And your voice made the sky break. But you were all alone."
He sat beside her slowly. "Was I scary?"
"No." She leaned on his arm. "Just sad. Like you lost something big and couldn't find it."
Eon didn't answer right away. A breeze rustled the garden behind them, stirring the soil. "Maybe I did."
"Do you miss your family?"
"I don't think I had one. Not really."
Nivi looked up at him with that sharp child's gaze that always saw more than it should. "You do now."
He closed his eyes. And for the first time, he felt something sharp pierce through his quiet: fear.
Not fear of death, or pain, or even memory.
Fear of losing something he'd only just begun to love.
Later that day, a traveler passed through the village gate, coughing behind a scarf, his skin pale.
No one thought much of it.
But the wind carried his breath through Miren Hollow.
And the god, now a man, began to dream of endings.