The celebration of Selena's rebirth lasted three days, but on the fourth morning, a different kind of darkness descended upon Ashborne. It came not with fanfare or warning, but as a creeping wrongness that spread through the city like frost across glass—silent, invasive, and absolutely malevolent.
Dante woke first, jolted from sleep by a sensation he couldn't immediately name. The bedchamber was too quiet. Not the peaceful quiet of early morning, but an oppressive silence that seemed to press against his eardrums, making them ache with the absence of sound. He couldn't hear the usual pre-dawn chorus of birds outside the window, couldn't hear the distant clatter of servants beginning their morning routines, couldn't even hear his own breathing though he could feel his chest rising and falling.
