The creature came from the river at midnight.
It had no shape—just emptiness shaped like a person. Silver light bled from its edges where the Deepening's power tried to hold it together. Its eyes were hollow. Its mouth was a wound.
The watcher on the wall saw it first.
He sounded the alarm. Bells rang through Ember's Rest.
Elara reached the gate before the creature did.
"What is it?"
A servant of the Deepening, the void said. Emptiness given form.
"Can we kill it?"
We can try.
---
The creature stopped at the edge of the torchlight.
I come for the child, it said. Its voice was not a voice—just pressure in the skull. Give her to the Deepening, and the rest of you may live.
"She's not yours to take."
Everything is the Deepening's to take. It was here before the world. It will be
