Silence.Not the silence of absence — but of awe.

A silence that listens back.

Elaria floated in the wound between what was and what might be. The column of light that had swallowed her now beat like a living heart, its pulse syncing with her own until she could no longer tell if she was breathing or simply being breathed through.

She opened her eyes, but there was no up, no down — only the endless spiral of light, each strand a memory unraveling from her body like thread from a loom. ...