The first sign of trouble came from the border villages.
Hope stood in the great hall, reading the reports with growing unease. Three villages in the eastern Duchies had gone silent. No messengers. No traders. No travelers. The scouts sent to investigate had returned with strange tales—empty houses, abandoned fields, and a creeping stillness that seemed to swallow sound itself.
Kaelen was beside her. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
"This doesn't feel like an attack," he said. "No bodies. No signs of struggle. It's like everyone just... vanished."
"Or something took them," Mira said. Her mismatched eyes were distant. "I've seen fragments. A darkness that doesn't kill. A darkness that consumes. It doesn't take bodies. It takes souls."
Hope's blood went cold. "Souls?"
"The ess
