At first, the cracks only looked like wounds in the sky.
Long black lines across the white ceiling of Heaven. Ugly, deep, glowing at the edges like something hot had burned through the world and forgot to close behind it.
Then they started moving.
Slow. Careful. Like fingers spreading across glass.
Athena saw it before most of them did.
She knelt with one knee on the ground, spear laid beside her, one hand pressed flat against the white plain. Her eyes were half-closed, but she wasn't resting. She was listening. Not to sound. To structure. To pressure. To the way space bent and corrected itself.
Hermes appeared beside her in a flash—then stumbled.
That alone made several gods look over.
Hermes never stumbled.
He frowned, checked his own feet, then the ground.
"…I was aiming for over there."
Athena opened her eyes. "How far?"
Hermes pointed behind him. "About twenty steps."
Athena's face went tight. "You landed three inches from where you started."
