The first time Erynd refused to act, a city died.
Not because he was absent.
Because he was invited—and said no.
The city of Virell burned beneath a sky split by red lightning. Riots had become purges. Freedom had turned sharp, and no one remembered how to put it down.
They begged him.
Knees in ash. Voices cracking.
"Choose for us!"
Erynd stood at the gate, black hair whipping in the heat, scar glowing painfully across his chest.
His oath pulled tight.
He could see the future clearly.
If he intervened, Virell would survive—order imposed, blood minimized.
And something worse would be born.
Dependence.
If he refused—
The city would fall.
He closed his eyes.
"I won't decide," he said.
The scream that followed was not anger.
It was betrayal.
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Erynd, you can save them."
"Yes," he said. "Once."
He stepped back.
The gate closed.
Virell fell by morning.
The dead numbered in the thousands.
The survivors cursed his name.
The oath burned—but did not break.
Yet something inside him fractured anyway.
That night, the scar bled.
Not blood.
Meaning.
The Living Oath rejected him.
[OATH STRAIN DETECTED]
Violation Vector: Moral Deviation
Status: FRACTURING
Erynd collapsed in the ruins outside the city, screaming as choice and consequence tried to tear him in half.
Lyra held him, sobbing. "You didn't do this."
"I did," he gasped. "I chose not to choose."
And the world had paid the price.
The Covenant Devourer felt it immediately.
A crack.
An opening.
It descended upon Virell's ruins, feasting on the bitterness, the broken promises, the unkept hopes.
It grew.
No longer a parasite.
Something closer to a god.
Far above, the Watcher recorded emergency instability.
Living Oath integrity compromised.
Recommended action: Intervention.
For the first time—
The Watcher considered acting.
Caelis arrived too late.
He stood among the ashes, fists shaking.
"You let this happen," he said.
Erynd did not argue.
"Yes."
Caelis's voice broke. "Then what was the point?"
Erynd met his gaze, eyes hollow.
"So that the next time," he said, "it isn't me deciding whether the city lives."
Silence fell.
Not acceptance.
But understanding.
In the distance, something enormous moved.
The Devourer had found its feast.
And it was no longer satisfied with scraps.