Quinlan watched the grey blade go dark in Nyxara's palm, and nobody in the soul realm spoke for a long time.
Overhead, the stars burned in their uncharted patterns, dense and motionless.
Pink light pulsed from the tree at the heart of the realm into roots that curled deeper into the soil, and even that faint glow seemed to have dimmed since the blade's last words. The air carried no wind, and the silence that settled over the clearing pressed down on everyone standing in it with a weight that had nothing to do with gravity.
The implications of what was revealed felt...
Crippling.
Alexios's breathing had gone shallow. The old king stood with one hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt, staring at the grass.
His kingdom, his throne, his wars and treaties and careful rule, all of it had existed inside a cage drawn by someone else's will.
Ayame hadn't moved. Her composure held, but her gaze had gone distant, already parsing the blade's last words for a thread they could pull.
