Darkness ruled the sky.
Where the moon should have hung, there was only a vast, unnatural void, as if the heavens themselves had been carved open. The stars dimmed, their light trembling, uncertain. The world seemed to hold its breath.
On the battlefield, the surviving warriors slowly stirred.
Ash drifted like snow through the broken forest. The smell of burnt magic and blood clung to everything, heavy and bitter. Fires guttered in shallow craters where the earth had been torn apart.
Lucien knelt at the center of the shattered stone circle, his hands braced against the fractured runes, his head bowed.
Seraphine was gone.
The word beat in his skull with merciless precision.
Gone.
He felt the truth of it in his bones, in the hollow echo where her presence had once lived. For centurie
