Behind her, the entities did not follow. But they listened. For the first time, they listened—not for prayers, but for footsteps.
Silence. The crack in the sky trembled.
She whispered it.
The entities recoiled. The sky-skin tried to heal. But Amirah grabbed the edge of the crack and pulled it wider. amirah adara higher entities
The Loom screamed. It was a sound that turned the air to glass and the glass to dust. But Amirah didn't flinch. She had already seen the shape of the lock. And she had already stolen the key—a tiny, ridiculous thing: the name of a star that the entities had forgotten they had named. Behind her, the entities did not follow
"I know you're listening," she said, not with her mouth but with the calcium in her bones. "You, who orbit the corpse of a star that never existed. You, whose second toe is a black hole. You, who dream gravity into being." Silence
"Remember that you were once small," she said. "Remember fear. Remember hunger. Remember the taste of not knowing what comes next."