And Anders felt it. Not heat. Not pain. Something else. A sudden, terrible clarity. Every lie he’d ever told, every small cruelty, every time he’d watched his little sister fall and done nothing—it all rushed to the front of his brain, lit up like a prosecutor’s evidence board. He was guilty. Not in the abstract, Sunday-school way. Specifically . Irrefutably.
Anders reached out. Slowly. Carefully. And laid his palm on the man’s chest, over his heart—if he had one. The Divine Fury
He didn’t disappear. He didn’t transform. He simply… sagged. The terrible pressure in the room eased. The white fire guttered and went out. And Anders felt it
He walked out of the chapel, into the vast prairie morning. The wind was cold and clean. And for the first time in twenty years, Anders didn’t feel the Fury. Something else
But this time, something was different.