The white lasted four seconds.
I know because I counted. Not deliberately, the way you count when you're waiting. The way you count when everything else has stopped and the numbers are the only moving thing left. One. Two. Three. Four.
Then the Hall came back.
The candles were out. Every one of them, simultaneously, which left the room lit only by the silver still bleeding from the floor cracks, slower now, the frantic pulse of active engagement settling into something steadier. The covenant registering completion. Not the thing's completion. Mine.
The stone was inert on the floor between Serena's feet. Not ash, not destroyed. Just a piece of dark rock, the light gone out of it, the activation interrupted and the counter-inscription locked over it like a seal pressed into cooling wax.
