The light collapsed.
Not outward inward.
The silver boundary sealed itself with a soundless finality, its surface smoothing into a calm, luminous arc that stretched across the horizon like a second sky. The screaming pressure vanished. The earth stilled. Nightfall exhaled.
Draven was gone.
Elara stood frozen where he had disappeared, her arms still outstretched, fingers trembling in empty air. The bond between them had not snapped but it had changed. Thinned. Stretched across a distance that felt immeasurable.
She could still feel him.
Not his body.
His will.
“No,” she whispered, voice breaking. “You said you’d stay.”
The Watchers remained silent, their faces pale, eyes fixed on the boundary with a mixture of awe and fear. One finally spoke, voice barely steady. “He is not dead.”
