“Seraphina!”
Adrian’s voice snapped above me just as the ground gave way completely. My body dropped fast, the sudden emptiness pulling everything down with it, breath, balance, thought.
I reached out on instinct. For a second, just one, my fingers caught his.
A grip. Tight. Real.
Then it slipped. Not from weakness. From force. Something pulled me harder, faster, downward. The last thing I saw was his face shifting, not controlled, not calculated. Something raw is breaking through.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
The fall didn’t last long. It only felt like it did.
My body hit something solid, but not hard. A controlled impact. Designed. I didn’t move immediately. Not because I couldn’t. Because I needed one second to understand what had just happened. The air here felt differen
