The ritual room was in absolute silence.
Not a comfortable silence—but that heavy, dense kind that makes even breathing seem like a mistake.
In the center of the chamber, Kael lay suspended within an ancient containment circle. Ancient runes, older than the Witch Kingdom itself, shimmered in unstable shades of blue, violet, and white. The air around his body trembled slightly, as if reality were struggling to decide whether to still accept that existence there.
He breathed.
But each breath felt like a forced concession from the world.
Eleanor Scarlet stood at the edge of the circle.
The Witch Queen.
The last great living authority of her lineage.
Her ceremonial robe trailed across the polished obsidian floor, but she seemed oblivious. Her eyes—golden, ancient, too sharp to belong to a mortal being—were fixed on her grandson's body.
And, for the first time in decades…
There was fear in them.
