High above, in a chamber grown quiet with worry, Ethan stared at a notification he hadn't summoned and couldn't fully parse.
[Ding!]
[Unregistered Class Event Detected]
[Subject: Valen of the Thalvion]
[Origin: Unknown — Non-Divine Source]
[Action: Monitor only. No system authority to intervene.]
Ethan read it twice, then a third time, unease settling slow and cold in his chest.
Non-divine source. He hadn't granted this. He hadn't even known it was possible. Whatever had just touched Valen hadn't come from him, hadn't come from Ravyn, hadn't come from any god at all.
There's something in this world that isn't us, he realized, the thought arriving with a weight he didn't fully know how to carry. Something old enough, patient enough, to notice one grieving elf in the middle of a forest and choose, for reasons I can't begin to guess, to answer him.
He didn't know if that was good news or terrible news.
**** ****
