The darkness wasn’t empty.
It breathed.
It rippled.
It clawed.
Elena wasn’t falling through a void, she was being dragged through something alive. Something ancient, cold, and hungry. The blood-channel twisted around her like a living vortex, pulling at her skin, her lungs, her very bones. Voices whispered from every direction, layered upon each other like a choir of ghosts, speaking in a language that didn’t belong anywhere on earth.
“Crimson Heir…”
“Daughter of the First…”
“Come home.”
She tried to scream, to fight, to claw her way back to something, anything, but her body wouldn’t listen. Every cell felt stretched, compressed, ripped apart and stitched back together. Her heartbeat wasn’t even her own rhythm anymore; the channel controlled it, dragging her deeper and deeper until
