The light didn’t fade.It fractured.

Elaria stumbled to her knees, gasping, her hands buried in the shimmering dust that had once been the Vale’s soil. The air still pulsed with the echo of Rhovan’s arrival—violent, thunderous, divine. Her ears rang. Her heart did too.

For a moment, she thought she was dead.

Then she heard him breathing.

“Kael…” Her voice cracked, half a prayer, half a disbelieving whisper. “Kael—?”

The dust shifted beside her. A shadow stirred within ...