Erynd did not dream.
Dreams required coherence.
He drifted instead through fragments—moments without sequence, thoughts without ownership. Fear that wasn't his. Choices made by hands he could no longer feel.
When he woke, the first thing he noticed was silence.
Not the selective silence from before.
This one was empty.
Lyra knelt beside him in a cavern lit by bioluminescent veins in the rock. Her eyes were rimmed red. She looked older.
"How long?" Erynd croaked.
"Five days," she said. "You stopped breathing twice."
He absorbed that without comment. His mind reached inward by reflex—and found gaps.
Holes where authority used to rest.
He could still think faster than most.
But the terrifying clarity was gone.
"Count," he whispered.
Lyra blinked. "What?"
"Shards," he said. "How many survived?"
Her jaw tightened. "At least seven."
That was too many.
Erynd sat up slowly. Pain flared—not sharp, but misaligned, like his body and reality disagreed about where he should be.
"What happened?" he asked.
Lyra stood and paced. "When you fractured, the unfinished oath… dispersed. Pieces of it attached to nearby minds. People who were… compatible."
"Define compatible," Erynd said.
"Angry," she replied. "Broken. Unbound."
Erynd closed his eyes.
That meant war.
They found the first shard-bearer by accident.
A town that no longer prayed.
Not because they'd lost faith.
Because they didn't need to.
The man stood in the square, hands stained with blood that evaporated before it hit the ground. His eyes glowed with a dim, familiar absence.
Fear—externalized.
The shard had given him authority without context.
"Stay back," Lyra whispered.
Erynd stepped forward anyway.
The man turned, smiling.
"I know you," he said. "Or… I know of you. You broke the gods."
"No," Erynd replied. "I broke a design."
The man laughed. Buildings creaked around them, reacting to his emotion.
"I don't feel afraid anymore," he said, wonder in his voice. "Isn't that beautiful?"
Erynd saw the flaw instantly.
Fear removed restraint, not consequence.
"You're bleeding into others," Erynd said. "They're terrified because you aren't."
The man frowned, confused.
Erynd felt something stir inside his chest—a faint echo of what he'd lost.
Not authority.
Responsibility.
"I can help you," Erynd said. "But you have to let go."
The shard-bearer's smile twisted.
"Why would I give up being free?"
The air screamed.
Lyra dragged Erynd back as the square imploded inward—not exploding, but collapsing into a knot of contradiction.
Erynd hit the ground hard, coughing.
He couldn't stop it.
Not anymore.
High above, beyond perception, Axiom observed.
It did not panic.
It did not regret.
It rebalanced.
Update: Centralized anomaly unstable.
Strategy Shift: Distributed containment.
Gods were no longer sufficient.
Heroes would be created instead.
The Exception Handler—no longer new, no longer hesitant—received an upgrade.
Emotion was introduced.
Minimal.
Controlled.
Necessary.
Erynd stared at the ruins of the town, blood seeping from his nose again.
"They're becoming me," he said softly.
Lyra shook her head.
"No," she said. "They're becoming what you almost were."
Erynd laughed, hollow.
"Worse."
He stood, swaying.
"I can't hunt them," he said. "I don't have the power."
Lyra met his eyes.
"Then stop trying to be the solution."
Erynd frowned. "What else is there?"
She pointed at his chest.
"Be the question."
Far away, something ancient and precise adjusted a final variable.
Tolerance reached limit.
Resolution required.
And somewhere in the world, a hero was born—crafted not by gods, but by a constant learning how to feel.