Elaria woke to silence that wasn’t silent at all.

The ruins breathed. The very stones of the Vale pulsed with a low vibration, a heartbeat that wasn’t human. Ash hung in the air like drifting snow; when she inhaled, it tasted of iron and old prayers. The world had gone pale, as if every color had been scraped away in the night.

For a moment she didn’t remember how she’d fallen.

Only the echo of Draven’s hand tearing free from hers, the light swallowing him whole, and the whisper ...