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"They remember parts of it," he said after a long moment, his voice a low rumble I could feel through my back. "The mind protects itself from the worst of it. Buries what it can't handle." His voice dropped lower. "But some things leave marks that can't be forgotten."

The clouds ahead had begun to thin, revealing glimpses of the landscape below. Or what should have been landscape. Instead, there was... nothing. An absence so complete it hurt to look at, like trying to see into a hole in the world itself.

"There," Aether said, though he didn't need to. I could feel it now—a vast, hunger that seemed to pull at something deep inside me. "The Void."

Nihr banked slightly, and the clouds parted fully. I forgot how to breathe.

It stretched as far as I could see, a mass of writhing shadows that consumed everything in its path. No light escaped it, no sound emerged from it. Even the dimmed light seemed to bend away from its edges, as if the very air feared being devoured.

This was what had changed Aether. What had marked all of them. And in a few hours, I would have to walk into its depths.

And suddenly, I recognized it. From my dream with the girls—the father dragging them into the darkness, their mother sobbing in the wake of it all.

"Remember," Aether's voice was barely a whisper now. "It's not about surviving. It's about choosing to keep fighting—resisting—even when everything inside you wants to give in."

I thought I felt his hand brush my arm—just for a moment, but when I turned to look at him, his eyes were fixed ahead, his expression unreadable as we soared towards the unending darkness of the Void.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The five ofus stood before the wall of nothingness, its mass of darkness stretching endlessly in every direction. Even the perpetual twilight seemed to bend away from it, as if the very light feared being consumed. Five Spectres I didn't recognize stood behind us, their void burns dark against their skin, while Aether addressed us from the front.

"The nobles and Council members will arrive by the time you emerge," he said, his voice carrying across the emptiness that separated us from the darkness. "They come to witness either your triumph or your failure."

"But it's nearly a day's ride from Ravenfell," Kenna said, her composure cracking slightly. "How long will we be in there?"

"As long as it takes." The finality in Aether's tone left no room for further questions.

The Void's pull had grown stronger since we'd landed, like something alive reaching for me. That whisper that had started during our flight was now a constant thrum under my skin, making it hard to stand still.

"You're free to enter now," Aether said. "I hope to see you on the other side."

No one moved. The words hung in the air between us and that wall of darkness. Kenna's hands trembled as she took a half-step forward, then stopped. Theron seemed frozen in place, his eyes darting between the Void and the Spectres as if searching for some hidden clue. Even Valkan's confidence appeared to waver, if only for a moment.

But the pull was too strong now. It sang in my blood, a symphony of shadows that promised answers.

I didn't look back at Aether. Didn't check to see if the others were watching. I simply walked forward, each step more certain than the last, until the darkness reached out with eager fingers and pulled me in.

It consumed me instantly. Tendrils of shadow slid across my arms, my legs, my torso—their touch both burning and freezing at once. My vision went black, and then my sense of gravity disappeared entirely. Up became down, or maybe there was no up or down anymore. Just endless, suffocating nothing.

The shadows weren't content to just surround me. They seeped through my skin, clawing their way beneath the surface, burying themselves in every muscle, every tendon, every bone until I couldn't tell where I ended and the darkness began. It flooded my lungs, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't breathe.

My web latched onto my spine in desperation, braiding itself upward as I writhed against the invasion. But even that familiar power felt wrong here—weak and foreign in this place of absolute nothingness. I felt it begin to fray, to dissolve, as consciousness slipped further away. The shadows pulled me deeper, deeper, until there was nothing left of me at all.

And then?—

I sucked in a giant, clean breath.

My vision snapped back into focus. Music pulsed through mybody, and above me, an enormous flower orbited slowly, its petals casting shifting patterns of light across the crowd. The Enclave. I was at the Enclave. In Luminaria.

The familiar hum of liquid euphoria coursed through my veins. Through the shifting lights, I saw them—Osta, Raine, and Briar, dancing and laughing as they twirled through the crowd. A smile tugged at my lips. They looked so alive, so real. I felt myself let go, melting into the dancing figures around me. The melodies thrummed through me as minds began to glow around us, pulsing in rhythm with the beat.

Then something shifted.

One by one, faces turned toward me. The smiles remained, but their eyes... their eyes went white, empty. Hollow. Each person I looked at contorted in agony, their features twisting into masks of pain as blood began to pour from their nose, then their eyes, then their ears, soaking their collars with crimson streaks.

I screamed, but the sound was lost in the music. Bodies dropped by the hundreds. Osta. Raine. Briar. All of them, because of me. Because I looked at them.

I slammed my eyes shut, pressed my palms against them until colors burst behind my lids.It's not real. It's not real. It's not?—