There was no pain.
No sensation at all.
Only black.
Not just the absence of light but something deeper. A velvet nothingness, weightless and infinite.
Elysia floated in it, suspended like a feather in an ocean with no surface, no floor. There was no heat, no cold, no sound.
Just the black.
It wrapped around her softly, like a lover's embrace or a grave's final touch. She didn't remember falling.
Didn't remember the blade. Only the warmth of Malvoria's body against hersthe smell of ash and blood in the airthe desperate need to protect her.
And then nothing.
A blank canvas of endless dark.
Her breath should've caught in her throat. Her heart should've pounded. But here, she didn't breathe. She didn't move.
She simply… was.
At first, she thought this was death.
She waited for a voice, a gate, a tunnel of light anything.
But there was only stillness.
Until something shifted.
