~ Regis's POV ~
The cursed woods are quieter tonight.
I stand beneath the gnarled canopy, where the moonlight slices through twisted branches, illuminating jagged shards of the sky.
The silence is suffocating—it’s not peace; it’s the stillness of something waiting. Something, watching, breathing in the void between the stars. The trees no longer whisper. They’ve fallen mute.
They were watching silently.
The air around me is thick, a breath held by the world itself. I feel it, crawling beneath my skin, seeping into the marrow of my bones. The old magic stirs. The void calls to me. It began the night she jumped.
Seraphina.
I see it still—her body falling through moonlight, her hair flaring like a war banner. No scream. No final cry.
Just… silence.
Not the fall of a victim.
The fal
