Ariane:
When the gate dissolved, it felt like the world was unraveling.
Light bled from the seams of the sky, torn apart like parchment set aflame. Darkness pressed in—not the suffocating kind, but soft and star-strewn. Velvet skies stretched wide above me, endless and aching, and the air—cool and sweet—rushed into my lungs like the first breath after drowning.
I exhaled a sound that was part sob, part gasp, part grateful plea to the heavens.
And then—
His voice.
My ruin.
My solace.
The tether to my everything.
"Ariane?"
Seris's voice—his true voice—sounded like storm light catching on broken glass. Beautiful. Raw. The kind of sound that wakes you from the deepest sleep with a jolt straight through the ribcage.
I ran. No thought. No pause. Only instinct. Only need fueling my bo
