The Nameless Hunger doesn't roar.
It doesn't scream.
It doesn't chase.
It waits.
Because that's how the void wins not by striking first, but by being the last thing left.
I stand at the edge of the Starless Realm.
There is no sky. No floor. No end.
Only a cold that doesn't bite but forgets.
Even my fire flickers here.
Not out of fear.
But confusion.
Because the Starless Realm does not kill.
It undefines.
Oravelle gives me one gift before I go.
A beast carved from dreambone and stormlight.
"Ride it," she says, "but do not command it.
The Wild does not serve it runs beside."
So I ride.
Into the black.
And every heartbeat feels like a bargain.
The deeper I go, the more things I lose
My name.
My memories.
My anger.
Until only one thing remains
My will.
Not to survive.
But to be.
The Hunger speaks.
Not in sound.
But in silence so loud it chokes thought.
"You are too bright," it says.
"Too much noise."
"Come, let me hush you. Let me unmake what never belonged."
And I see it.
Not a monster.
But absence.
It wears the face of every god who feared chaos.
Every story that ended in silence.
Every woman who was too wild, too loud, too powerful and had to be rewritten.
"You cannot devour me," I whisper.
"Because I already consumed myself."
"And came back burning."
I release the last of my fire.
But not to fight.
To become.
I melt into pure light.
No form.
No face.
Just flame without shape.
And it hurts.
But the void cannot hold what refuses to be bound.
The Starless Realm cracks.
Not loudly.
Like a breath drawn too deep.
And the void?
It shrinks.
Not gone.
But now
it remembers my name.