The world did not fall apart.

It peeled.

Slowly at first—like paint blistering under too much sun—then violently, as if the air itself were shedding a skin it had worn for far too long. Layer after layer sloughed away, each membrane revealing another trembling sheet of reality beneath it. The sound wasn’t a sound at all but a pressure, a bone-deep groan, like a serpent stretching after centuries of confinement.

Elaria felt it before she saw it.

The air behind her shifted backward, ...