The pressure began quietly. That was how Kael knew it was real. No thunder, no light tearing the sky apart, and no proclamation carved into the air. Just a slow, merciless tightening like the world drawing a breath and deciding not to let it go.
Kael felt it while standing perfectly still in his chamber, one hand braced against the wall, the other gripping Eron’s shoulder hard enough to bruise.
“Don’t move,” Kael said.
Eron nodded, though fear flickered in his eyes. “I’m not...”
The pressure doubled and the floor creaked. Not cracked—bowed. As if the estate itself were being pressed flat by an invisible palm.
Kael’s vision blurred. The seal around his demonic core flared white-hot, the divine mark burned into it pulsing like a second heartbeat.
They were not watching anymore, they we
