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Taly reached out and grabbed it.

“That’s it!” Skye cried. “I felt her.”

The bond gave a weak pull, and he yanked it back fiercely, refusing to let her slip away.

Beside him, Aiden dropped to his knees, hands already glowing green as he pressed them over Taly’s heart. The light spilled across her skin in clean, pulsing waves.

Suddenly, Taly was hurtling back to the surface.

To life and air, light and warmth.

Her chest began to burn. Shards, she needed tobreathe.

Feeling came back. Her body ached. Her skin prickled. Hands pressed to her chest.

Her heart sparked.

Then it caught fire.

Someone was screaming her name,begging—

She was ripped sideways before breath could reach her.

Not a gentle nudge or a subtle shift—this was a violent, bone-jarring impact that ripped her from the pull of life back into the dark.

“Shit, I lost her!” Aiden barked.

Skye paced like a caged animal—nothing to swing at, no enemy in sight. Just walls closing in around the silence where her heartbeat should’ve been.

Sarina was up now, face white with fear.

Ivain stood rigid, fists clenched so tight the sharp tang of blood permeated the air.

The world splintered apart, collapsing into shards of black and gray, until only the silence remained.

And in that silence, Taly floated.

Not falling, not rising. Just... there.

Suspended in an endless, weightless void. A breathless pause between one reality and the next.

It was cold but not biting. More like the absence of warmth.

The space around her shimmered faintly, like a ripple on still water. Then a shadow appeared, looming above her.

Its size defied comprehension, stretching beyond what her mind could grasp. Vast. Immense.

This was not the grimble. It was something else. Something older.Bigger. A darkness that carried weight.

Its presence pressed against her like the crushing depths of the ocean.

“Kairó vuun’manii?”

The words echoed, bouncing like they’d struck stone.

Maybe Taly had been capable of fear once. Perhaps she would’ve wondered what those words meant and why they kept following her. But those worries were for the living, and she was already slipping beyond them.

A shudder tore through the fabric of this strange half-place. It made no sound—only the sensation of reality buckling.