The world did not break all at once.
It fractured.
Piece by piece.
Breath by breath.
Until nothing felt whole anymore.
Aria stood at the center of it all, unmoving, her body suspended between control and chaos, between who she had been… and what she was becoming.
The forest around her had fallen silent.
Not the natural quiet of dawn.
But something deeper.
Something unnatural.
Even the wind refused to touch her.
Even the earth beneath her seemed to recoil.
Her chest rose slowly, unnaturally calm for the storm raging within her. The darkness that had overtaken her moments ago still lingered, coiled tightly beneath her skin, alive and waiting.
Watching.
“You feel it now,” the Shadow King murmured, his voice no longer distant, no longer contained.
It echoed through her bones.
T
