Every person watching through screens and every witness standing in that frozen field...
All of them went completely still.
Most didn't understand what he meant, didn't grasp the implications behind the words.
But something about the way he'd said it, made their skin crawl anyway.
Then a voice emerged from the dimensional tear, feminine and carrying power that pressed against reality itself.
"It seems like you understand far more than I initially thought."
And the moment that voice sounded–
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH
–All four Patriarchs vanished.
Royce disappeared mid-breath, his orange eyes still wide with something approaching fear.
Ashford folded through space without a word, his grey hair the last thing visible before he blinked out of existence.
Cross simply stopped being there, the snow where he'd stood settling as if he'd never existed at all.
And Kinsley...
