White.

Not the gentle kind of white—

not snow, not sky, not dawn.

This was the kind of white that erased.

That replaced.

That unmade.

Elaria’s body spun inside it like a loose thread caught in a storm. Her scream never shaped itself; the light stole the sound before it could exist. Every thought she reached for dissolved into a smear of gold and pressure. Every memory she tried to cling to slid out of her hands like smoke.

Only one thing remained fixed:

Kael’s silhouette inside the ...