The moment the sphere of miasma sealed shut, the world around the elder twisted.
All sound vanished, the clash of armies, the shouts from the golden stairway, even the trembling ground. Everything was swallowed by a suffocating, ink-black darkness.
The air inside felt wrong, heavy, thick like pitch, clinging to his robes and skin as if trying to drag him down.
But ahead, a single pulse of dim light flickered.
The elder narrowed his eyes.
A figure sat atop an obsidian throne carved from pure shadow. Tendrils of miasma curled behind her like living things.
Slowly, the figure rose, and the darkness peeled away from her face.
His heart dropped. "…Silica?"
Her features were unchanged.
The same student who would always sit quietly by the window during his lectures, chin in hand, without paying attentions.
The troublesome girl, who always carried an fierce look in her eyes.
But the gaze staring back at him now was not hers.
