Aurelia woke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind, not the quiet that meant safety but the heavy, watching silence that pressed against her chest like unseen eyes. Stone arched above her, ancient and cracked, veins of dim light pulsing faintly through the walls like a heartbeat long past its prime.
She was no longer falling.
She lay on cold ground, her body aching, her power… wrong.
It was there she could feel it but muted. Contained. As if the world itself had wrapped iron bands around her soul.
Aurelia pushed herself upright slowly, breath unsteady.
The abyss had not killed her.
That alone terrified her.
The chamber stretched wide around her, circular and deep, carved with symbols she didn’t recognize but somehow understood. They weren’t Moonborn. Not Sunborn. Not Sovereign.
They
