The world split open.
A deafening crack split the air as if the Hollow itself had been struck by a god’s hammer. The ground beneath Seren lurched, shards of black rock jutting upward in violent spires. Her boots slipped against the fractured stone, but she caught herself on instinct, heart hammering.
Kael was gone.
His absence was like a wound—raw, bleeding into every sense. One moment, his presence had been a steady weight in the air, tethering her. The next, the shadow’s blade of form had torn it away, ripping him out of her reach and into the void.
The darkness still rippled where he had been taken, the air shivering like disturbed water. She didn’t think—she dove for it.
The surface met her with the bite of ice and the burn of flame, a paradox that seared her skin and stole her br
