Aria slept for a full week after the binding.
When she woke, the Void was still quiet. The eastern villages were rebuilding. The Citadel finally felt calm for the first time since the battle with Thorne.
Too calm.
That’s what set off alarms for Darius.
“Nothing is this quiet,” he said, sharpening his blade in the war room at 3 AM. “Not after what we just did. The Void was loud. Brutal. This silence feels… deliberate.”
He was right.
The scouts came in at dawn.
Not from the east, where the Void had been. From the west. From the Fae territories.
“They’re gone,” the scout reported, blood on his coat and exhaustion in his eyes. “The entire Silverglade Court. 500 Fae. Gone. No bodies. No fight. Just empty houses and cold hearths.”
Kade slammed his fist on the table. “The Void didn’t do
