The silence here was not the absence of sound but the absence of existence itself. I felt myself spread thin, a million points of awareness scattered across a white expanse that had no beginning and no end. My hands were missing, my breath was gone, yet I could see everything through a gaze that belonged to no one.
"Lucien, can you hear me?"
A voice drifted through the static. It sounded distant, like a call from the bottom of a frozen lake. I focused on the vibration, pulling my scattered fragments toward a single point of intention. Slowly, the white began to curdle, forming the vague outlines of a stone floor and an empty sky.
"I can hear you, Seraphina," I said, or rather, the air around her spoke my thoughts.
I looked down from my formless perspective. Seraphina was sitting on
