The silence in the Opera House was no longer artificial by Zane. It was the suffocating, heavy quiet of held breaths.
On the centre stage, the tableau was frozen.
Zane stood with his hands outstretched, the three spheres of Tainted Prime Essence hovering above his palms like cursed moons.
Lady Elara stood opposite him, her porcelain face unreadable, while the blind Sommelier, Vancourt, remained bent at the waist, his tongue still extended, tasting the air where the Silent Sister’s soul rippled.
Zane’s heart hammered against his ribs, but it wasn't a singular rhythm. It was a chaotic drum circle.
He felt the slow, tectonic thud of his own heart, overlaid with the rapid, frantic flutter of Caelus’s panic and the heavy, sludging beat of Ignis’s endurance.
Burn him, the Keeper of Ash
