Freedom did not arrive gently.
It arrived like an untrained weapon—sharp, unbalanced, and swung by hands that had never held responsibility before.
The first city to fall after the Constant loosened its grip was Valecross.
Not to monsters.
To people.
Erynd stood on a hill overlooking the smoke, his cloak heavy with rain. The city below burned in patches, not from invasion, but from disagreement. Factions had risen overnight—each claiming their interpretation of freedom was the only one that mattered.
Lyra watched in silence.
"This is what they'll blame you for," she said.
Erynd nodded. "They should."
He did not look away.
Inside Valecross, a man preached choice like scripture.
"Without gods," the preacher cried, "we must become our own absolution!"
Crowds listened.
Others armed themselves.
The shard within the city had not bonded to one person.
It had fractured further—distributed ideology instead of power.
Erynd felt it like a headache behind his thoughts.
"An idea-shard," he murmured. "That's new."
Lyra exhaled sharply. "You broke reality so badly it learned philosophy."
Erynd almost smiled.
They entered the city openly.
No aura. No command.
Just two travelers.
That alone unsettled people more than divine signs ever had.
A woman blocked their path, eyes wild. "Whose side are you on?"
Erynd answered honestly.
"No one's."
She recoiled as if struck.
That night, the fighting reached the inner districts.
Erynd moved through chaos, not stopping blows, not correcting trajectories—only watching, learning.
Patterns emerged.
Not of violence.
Of fear.
Every clash began the same way: someone demanding certainty from another who didn't have it.
In the cathedral ruins, the preacher met Erynd.
"You did this," the man said, voice trembling with devotion. "You killed the gods."
"I removed a shortcut," Erynd replied.
The preacher raised a blade. "Then give us a new one."
Erynd stepped closer, unarmed.
"There isn't one," he said. "That's the point."
The man screamed and charged.
Erynd moved—not faster, but earlier.
He shifted the conversation.
"Why are you afraid?" he asked quietly.
The preacher froze.
No one had ever asked him that.
The shard flared—and cracked.
Not from force.
From introspection.
Far away, Caelis felt it.
The world pulling—not toward certainty, but toward accountability.
He stopped walking.
For the first time since exile, he turned back.
Above all of it, the Watcher observed.
Noted the cost.
Noted the resilience.
And for the first time, did not record a solution.
Only a question:
How much freedom can a world survive—and still choose to live?