Night rippled across the shattered sky as the veil groaned in its death. Yet, far from the chaos of the council grounds, where demons screamed and same demons clashed, the Blackthorn Mansion stood trembling beneath a wounded moon.
And through its garden—through the cracked wards, through the trembling air, through the panic that pulsed like a dying star....
she walked in without resistance.
She did not break the barrier.
She did not force her way in.
She simply stepped inside, as though the world itself parted for her.
Her hair was white, not of age but of the moon's first breath, long and weightless like strands of woven frost. Her eyes glowed faintly, silver flecked with luminous violet—eyes older than the wars that shaped the realms. She wore a dress of flowing blue-grey silk, shifting like mist around her ankles as she moved.
Even the failing wards made no attempt to stop her.
For she was not intruding.
She was expected.
Not by Nerine.
Not by Kael.
