The Temple did not collapse all at once. It unraveled.
That was the only word that fit what I was seeing now, because the ancient structure was not simply breaking apart under the pressure of the fracture-born's presence. It was coming undone at a deeper level, like a tapestry losing the threads that held its shape together, and every second that passed, more of reality peeled away in thin silver layers that dissolved into nothing before they could fall.
The keeper stood frozen in front of me, its shifting robes dimming as though the light within them had begun to fail. For the first time since I had met it, it did not move immediately to oppose me, did not raise chains or invoke the Temple's authority.
It simply watched.
"You are choosing to bind yourself to a fracture-born," it said slowly, each layered voice within its tone carrying a different shade of disbelief. "Not to seal it. Not to destroy it. To anchor it."
I met its gaze calmly. "Yes."
