He felt it the moment the feather was touched.

The bond flared to life, threading through time and space, pulling him toward the one who had grasped it. Warmth—mortal warmth—pulsed along the tether, a heartbeat in the dark. It was not the first time someone had claimed a piece of him. Over the centuries, many had sought his power, grasping at his fallen remnants in greed or desperation. But none had ever called him in the way this one did.

The god materialized into the chamber, the threads of existence bending around him as he stepped from nothing into something. The room was bathed in soft candlelight, but it flickered in protest, uneasy in his presence. His golden gaze landed on the figure before him—the mortal who had summoned him.

A royal. Bound in silk and duty, their shoulders weighted with the burdens of their station. They smelled of longing, of a fate unloved, of shackles they could not break. He knew that scent well.

Their eyes widened, drinking him in, though fear did not cloud them as it had with so many others before. No, this one was different. He could see it in the way their fingers curled around the feather as if afraid it might vanish, in the way their lips parted with unspoken questions but did not tremble.

"You wish to be freed." His voice was low, edged with something unreadable. It was not a question.

He had seen mortals kneel before him in prayer, weeping for mercy or power, pleading for salvation. This one did not beg. But they did not have to. Their soul screamed it louder than any words could.

He stepped closer. The distance between them faded, and for the first time in centuries, something stirred within him—not power, not strength, but possibility.

"I, too, am bound," he murmured, watching how the royal's breath hitched at his nearness. "My power lies dormant. My strength is caged. But there is a way."

The feather glowed between them, pulsing with the remnants of his essence. His salvation lay within reach—woven into the bones of destiny itself.