The light consumed Caspian.
Lena watched, frozen, as his form dissolved into radiance. It happened slowly and all at once, a paradox that her mind could not process. One moment he was there, pale and beautiful, his red eyes fixed on hers. The next moment, light poured from every part of him, not destroying but transforming, turning flesh and bone and ancient blood into something pure, something eternal.
His essence spread outward, upward, everywhere, weaving itself into the ancient barrier Morgana had built. She could feel him leaving, could feel the bond between them stretching, thinning, changing. He was not dying. He was becoming. He was everywhere and nowhere, present and absent, holding back the darkness so that others could live in the light.
And then he was gone.
The silence tha
