Ash drifted down like the remains of a dying star.
Pulverised marble fell in slow motion over what was left of the Inner Sanctum, settling on shattered crystal and torn Lux‑wiring.
The singularity had eaten every scrap of sound; in its wake lingered a suffocating, ringing silence that pressed cruelly against the eardrums. Where towering, weaponised pillars had once speared up towards the dome, only jagged, smoking stumps now jutted from the floor.
The spinning gyroscopes that had harnessed the Silent Sister’s despair lay in ruin, scattered across scorched stone in a thousand useless fragments.
Under one of those slabs, something moved.
Zane shoved a broken sheet of marble off his chest and rolled onto his side, lungs clawing for air that refused to come easily.
Every nerve shriek
