Tyla’s POV
Darkness wasn’t supposed to have a shape.
But here, inside the Lunar Sovereign’s realm, it did.
It sprawled across the horizon like a creature waiting to devour the sky. The ground beneath me was smooth white stone, cold enough to burn. Every breath I dragged into my lungs tasted like frost and starlight—so thin it barely kept me conscious.
My body trembled.
Not from fear.
Not from pain.
From something worse.
The bond.
It pulsed under my skin in frantic, bleeding bursts—Arthur’s presence flickering in and out like a heartbeat submerged underwater. Faint, distant, but there.
Alive.
My knees nearly buckled with relief.
But then the air thickened.
Silver bled across the ground, climbing up my bare feet like vines. The world around me rippled as if inhaling, and I knew—
