The world did not end with fire.
It ended with silence.
Aurelia stood at the center of the broken valley, her feet planted in earth that no longer remembered what it had been before she touched it. The sky above was torn stitched together by unstable light, dark seams pulsing slowly, like a wounded thing struggling to breathe.
Kane stood a few paces behind her, blood drying at his temple, his chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm. He did not speak. He had learned that when the world held its breath, so should he.
Aurelia’s power hummed beneath her skin not roaring, not exploding, but waiting.
The Voidborne was gone.
Not destroyed.
Not defeated.
Gone.
Pulled back into the fracture it had been born from when Aurelia had done the one thing no prophecy had predicted.
She had refu
