The high halls of Olympus hummed with a silence no one dared disturb. The seam between worlds had closed, but its echo lingered like smoke caught in the rafters. Zeus stood on the upper terrace, the winds folding around him, the thunderheads beneath like a restless army waiting for command.
He closed his eyes.
The visions came fast, jagged and cruel. Futures breaking against him like glass. The vote in the void wasn't hidden from him—he felt the weight of it pressing down already, old powers shifting, whispering the same word: death.
His death.
He saw flames spilling across fields where no mortals should walk. He saw oceans climbing too high, reaching for mountains. He saw the sky bending under a crown that wasn't his. And in the center of it all, shadows moved like chess pieces, the old ones testing, tightening their grip.
He breathed slow. His hand curled, lightning gathering between his fingers and fading again.
"They will come," he murmured to himself. "And I'll be ready."
