The thing above moved.
Not the Tribunal.
Something behind it.
Something deeper.
The broken white above Heaven peeled back in slow, terrible layers, and for one breath every god, every angel, every wounded thing on that battlefield understood the same truth.
This had gone too far.
Zeus rose from the crater with blood running down his chest and black lightning rolling off him in sheets. His left arm still hung wrong. His ribs were still open under skin that was trying to remember how to stay whole. Half his face was torn, one eye black with swelling, but the other one burned so hard it looked like night itself had learned how to stare back.
