Scarlett’s POV

The Shadow King does not scream when he fades.

There is no final roar, no violent rupture of the sky, and no shattering of stone or bodies. That is what surprises me most. After everything—after centuries of fear stitched into prophecy, after blood and crowns and blades—his end comes quietly.

Like a breath released.

I feel it before I see it. A loosening. A pressure lifting from the bones of the world. The air around the ancestral stones changes texture, no longer sharp ...