The sky bled.
Not rain, not ash—blood.
Thick and black, it spilled from the tear above the world like the heavens themselves were hemorrhaging. The trees bowed in silent agony. The birds had stopped singing. Even the wind had forgotten how to breathe.
Raze didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
Amara stood before him, steam rising from her skin. Her eyes glowed white-hot, and the air around her shimmered like a forge. Her scream had ripped the world apart—and sealed it, all in the same breath.
The spire was gone.
The shadow-creature had been pulled back into whatever grave it had tried to claw free from, its shriek echoing in the silence like a curse that hadn’t quite landed.
Cain rose slowly from the debris, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth, a smile twisting his lips like a wound.
