Silence.
Not peaceful silence.
But the heavy, suffocating silence of a world holding its breath after dying.
Aurelia drifted through it, weightless, drifting on a current that felt neither warm nor cold. The light around her was white not blinding, not dim just endless. A blank canvas stretching into infinity.
Kane…?
Her mind clawed the emptiness.
Kane, where are you?
No answer.
Her heart stuttered sharply.
The bond flickered once like a spark in deep water and went still again.
“Kane!” she shouted.
Her voice didn’t echo. It didn’t move. It simply dissolved into the light.
Aurelia swallowed hard and forced herself upright though she wasn’t sure she stood on anything. The ground beneath her was smooth, shimmering like the surface of a pearl.
She looked around desperately.
“Kan
