Long before magic belonged to this world, it belonged to the gods who ruled it.
Not as fire belongs to a flame or breath to the lungs but as power belongs to a throne. Magic was not something to be discovered, it was a privilege to be granted. Every miracle arrived with conditions and every spell left a footprint that went upwards.
The gods called it order, mortals learned to call it caution.
In the First Dominion, a prayer could fail not because it was weak but because it was inconvenient. A spell would collapse mid-casting if it's outcome displeased the wrong power. Even silence could be denial and often was. Each god governed over a domain of nature. Healing was not an act of mercy, it was a transaction, fire burned only when the god of flame saw fit.
The gods were everywhere and they were nowhere they did not wish to be.
Magic flowed downwards through a hierarchy of belief, gods to avatars, they're avatars to vessels, vessels to the desperate and useful. Those without favor earned to live without miracles. Those with favor learned something far more dangerous. That favor could be revoked.
When a god withdrew its sanction, magic recoiled. A healer could become a butcher in the blink of an eye. History recorded these moments as Tests of Faith but the survivors didn't see it that way.
But far beyond the temples and courts of heaven, something older than permission waited quietly. Time, like magic, remembered a future were none of this was necessary, and it was patient enough to borrow someone from it.