The unmaking never came.

The Goddess's power descended—absolute, terrible, concentrated on the space where Azrael had dissolved. Reality warped around her will. Time stuttered. The laws governing existence itself bent like steel under impossible pressure.

But the erasure didn't complete.

Not because she lacked power. Not because her certainty wavered. Because something unexpected happened in the moment before unmaking could finalize.

The dispersed essence that had been Azrael—scattered ...