POV: Lyra

Every deal has a loophole, and I was about to bet my existence on the one thing the Void didn’t understand: mercy.

The Echo-Verse roared around us, a vast expanse of silver-black nothingness stretched into infinity, It was not empty; it was waiting. Light bent at impossible angles, folding in on itself like a wounded thing. Sound arrived late, distorted, as though the realm itself decided which truths were allowed to be heard. Even thought felt slippery, as if the Void were tasting ...