The decree arrived without sound.
No thunder.
No light.
Just a pressure that bent the sky until the horizon screamed.
Elira felt it first — a sudden, suffocating cold pressing against the bond, testing it, probing for weakness. Stars dimmed overhead, not fading, but turning away.
Kael was already on his feet when the heavens spoke.
Not with a voice.
With law.
> By concord of the Firmament,
Aurelion Astraea is hereby severed from her origin.
Her name is struck from the constellations.
She is declared—
The air shattered.
Elira gasped, dropping to one knee as pain ripped through her chest — not physical, but existential. Something was being torn away.
Kael caught her instantly.
"Enough," he snarled at the sky. "You don't get to touch her."
> —ABOMINATION.
The word echoed through every realm at once.
Mountains shuddered. Seas recoiled. Magic across the world buckled and reeled as if reality itself had been insulted.
Elira screamed — not in agony, but in fury.
"No," she whispered.
The bond surged — shadow locking around her light like armor.
Kael felt it too — the finality.
"They've exiled you," he said, voice low with contained violence.
Elira lifted her head slowly.
"I know."
And the world felt it when she stood.
Not as a star of heaven.
But as something else.
Something chosen.
---
The shockwave did not stop at Dravenfall.
Across kingdoms, rulers woke gasping from sleep as ancient pacts flared to life.
Temples cracked. Oracles bled from the eyes. Wards written generations ago ignited with a single, impossible truth:
A god had fallen by choice and survived.
In the Eastern Reach, Queen Isolde dropped to one knee, crown clattering against marble as her court screamed in terror.
"She's awake," the oracle croaked. "And she stayed."
In the Ashlands, war-beasts knelt.
In the Sea of Glass, tides reversed themselves.
Some prayed.
Others sharpened blades.
Envoys rode through night and ash — some bearing banners of alliance, others secret orders for assassination.
Because if Elira existed…
Then heaven could be defied.
---
Kael stood on the battlements with Elira at his side, the fortress roaring beneath them as soldiers realized the truth.
She was no longer protected by heaven.
She was protected by him.
"They'll come," one of his generals said quietly. "Gods. Kings. Everything in between."
Kael did not look away from the darkening sky.
"Let them."
Elira turned to him. "You don't have to burn the world for me."
He finally looked at her then — eyes fierce, wounded, absolute.
"I'm not burning it," he said.
"I'm defending what's mine."
The serpent stirred, coiled and steady — no longer ravenous.
Satisfied.
Below them, horns sounded as foreign banners appeared on the horizon.
Not attacking.
Kneeling.
Kingdoms lowering themselves in recognition… or fear.
Elira exhaled slowly.
"They've made me a monster."
Kael reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together — public, unapologetic.
"No," he said. "They made you free."
Above them, a single star flickered — one that should not exist.
And heaven, for the first time since time began…
Was afraid of what it had created.