The smile in the dark widened.
It wasn’t something Kael could see—he felt it. Like a shadow pressing against his lungs from the inside, a weight of knowing that didn’t belong to him. The cavern beneath the world shuddered, and with each tremor, threads of something colder than fear began to climb upward.
Seren swayed on her feet, one hand clutching her chest. Her breath came shallow, as though every inhale tasted of ash.
“Seren.” Kael’s voice was steady in sound but frayed in the marrow. “Stay with me.”
Her eyes darted toward the north again—the pillar of smoke still rising, impossibly straight, impossibly black. “It’s calling me.”
“No,” Kael said firmly, stepping into her line of sight. “You’re not going to it.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “It’s not calling me to come. It
