PART ONE: INTO THE DEPTH
The seals recognized my approach differently this time.
Not with invitation. With urgency. The shimmer that had welcomed me before now vibrated with visible instability—reality itself trembling at the boundaries where the cage maintained its hold. I could feel the Rogues’ desperation through the barrier. Their grip weakening. Their sacrifice almost complete.
I stepped through alone.
The wrongness was sharper now, more immediate. The seal-magic registered my Supreme Queen blood but offered no protection this time. I was walking directly into destabilization, and every atom of my body screamed against it.
The Rogues were barely visible.
Most of them had degraded to pure shadow—thin wisps of consciousness barely maintaining shape. The largest one, the one that h
