The silver did not vanish.
It darkened.
Elara stood at the heart of the boundary, light still pouring from her skin but now it carried a depth, a gravity that bent everything around it inward. Silver rimmed the edges, but the core had turned obsidian, alive and watching.
Draven froze.
“Elara,” he whispered, dread clawing up his spine. “Talk to me.”
She turned slowly toward him.
Her eyes were no longer silver.
They were black glass, reflecting fragments of broken worlds.
The boundary pulsed once steady, obedient and the First Hunger staggered back as if struck, shadows recoiling violently from the altered light.
“No,” it breathed. “That is not convergence.”
Elara tilted her head slightly, studying it with eerie calm. When she spoke, her voice carried two tones hers, and something
