The glacier palace burned and froze at the same time, a paradox made manifest. Black sand had turned to glass beneath their feet; shards of it hung mid-air like suspended shrapnel, each one reflecting a different facet of the unfolding apocalypse. The Phoenix Heart was no longer heart-shaped, but a blazing, wingéd thing the size of a cathedral, hovering above the shattered throne. It beat out shockwaves that peeled centuries off the walls like layers of rotten parchment. Every pulse revealed older architecture beneath: Astrid's original ice temple, then the bone-white cavern where Søvnløs had first wept, then raw primordial fire—the very first wound in the world.
Agnetha stood at the center of the maelstrom, arms spread, laughing like a woman finally free of a long con. The chains that ha
