Sasha’s Pov
The night held its breath.
No rustle of wind. No insect song. Not even the pop of embers from the hearth. The fire burned too still, its flame high and motionless, silent, steady, watching.
It felt like the world was bracing for something.
I had barely let my eyes slip closed when the air around me thickened, pressing heavy against my skin like fog turned to stone.
And then, everything gave way.
I didn’t fall through space. I fell through something older. Memory. Flame. Blood not entirely my own.
The world twisted.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing barefoot on a plain of scorched obsidian, black glass riddled with deep, glowing cracks. Heat pulsed from below like a buried heart still trying to beat.
Above me, the sky stretched wide and wrong.
Crimson and bruised,
