The world didn't end with a bang. It ended with a silence so absolute it felt like Nala’s eardrums had been sucked out of her head.
As she fell, the violet light from the Spire’s overload didn't burn. It swallowed. The gravity that should have crushed her body against the pavement of Dar es Salaam seemed to warp, turning the air into a thick, electric syrup. For a heartbeat, she saw the city below her not as buildings and streets, but as a grid of cold, blue energy. And then, the darkness took her.
When her eyes finally opened, the rain was gone. The heat of the fire was gone.
Nala was lying on a bed of cold, grey sand. Her lungs burned as she took her first breath, the air tasting of salt and ancient copper. She tried to sit up, but her body felt like it had been shattered and glued ba
