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The space where Sacha stood isn’t just empty. It’swrong. A blackened circle in the middle of green, as if the world recoiled and folded in on itself. Like reality can’t bear to touch the place where he had existed.

The Authority soldiers hesitate, then surge forward, blades drawn. Searching. Hunting. Moving as though they expect him to reappear at any moment.

But that can’t be. Isn’t that what Sereven wanted?

My eyes move to the High Commander.

He hasn’t moved. Still standing at the edge of the circle. But the light from the crystal makes his face look inhuman—gaunt, distorted, shadowed in a way that doesn’t follow the shape of his skull.

I cannot move.

I cannot breathe.

Sacha is gone.

Gone. Destroyed. Erased.

The words tumble through my mind like broken glass, cutting deeper with each repetition. My mind refuses to accept what my eyes have witnessed. The more I think them, the less I can survive them.

This is wrong.

The Veinwardens need him.

Ineed him.

The truth crashes through me, brutal in its arrival. Too late to matter. Too late to change anything. After resisting what he’s become to me, the realization lands at the exact moment I can’t tell him.

This can’t be happening.

Not after the tower. The desert. The mountains.

Not after last night.

His hands on my skin. The shadows curling around silver light. The moment we stopped hiding from each other, if only for a night. I can still feel him—a phantom presence in my arms. The way he whispered my name. The way his fingers traced the veins beneath the silver. The way his mouth curved, ever so slightly, when I surprised him.

It was just beginning.

All those moments. All that trust. That fragile, stubborn, inevitable thing taking shape between us.

Gone.

Just gone.

As though he never existed at all.

His name burns in my throat. The memory of his voice. The arguments that became understanding. The stillness of him beside me in sleep. The shadows that danced when he let go.

Every heartbeat. Every moment. Ripped from me in a single instant.

My body is vibrating with an energy that threatens to tear me apart. A strange pressure builds in the air around me. My stomach twists. Nausea rolls through me in thick, suffocating waves. I reach out blindly, gripping the damp earth beneath me as though I mightfall without its anchor. Something unseen, something vast, presses against my skin. It seeps into my bones.

It’s not just inside me anymore. It’s everywhere. Leaking from marrow to air.

Building. Growing. Demanding.

My breath stutters, trapped between a sob and a scream that would never end if I allowed it to start.

The sky darkens overhead, clouds thickening where moments ago there was only fading twilight. Wind rises, sudden and sharp, rustling the trees in violent shivers. The change feels connected to me—tied to my pulse, to the fracture splitting me open from within. Lightning flickers inside the clouds, illuminating their depths with brief, merciless splendor.