It began with silence.
Not absence.
A silence that pressed against the ribs, heavy and knowing, as though the world itself were holding its breath. Beneath Duskend’s brittle towers and its glass-choked streets, the old wards trembled, not from age but anticipation.
Clara didn't move.
Her fingers hovered mid-air, trembling above the broken pieces of porcelain at her feet. The tea had been scalding, but she didn’t feel it now. Only the cold—that creeping, marrow-deep chill that came when old things woke.
She had known this day would come.
Had counted on it never arriving.
But Velastra—no, Vessai—had always been too stubborn to stay buried.
Clara stepped back, the hem of her robe whispering against the cracked marble floor. She turned from the window that overlooked the sea of lantern
