The first thing Lyria felt was the cold. It wasn't the kind that gnawed at skin—it seeped straight into bone, into soul. The kind that came after loss. The kind that lingered when the world had already taken too much.
The valley of fractured stars had gone still. The sky above her was a swirling tapestry of dying constellations—rivers of silver bleeding into the black, as though the heavens themselves mourned what had happened.
Kael was gone.
The pulse of his power, the warmth of their bond—it had dimmed to a fragile whisper buried somewhere deep in her chest. She clutched the broken shard, the last remnant of his soul's light, against her heart. It throbbed faintly, as if reminding her that he still existed. Somewhere.
But where the Veil had swallowed him, there was now only shadow—a wound in the world itself, still bleeding magic.
The air was thick with grief and with power.
