The darkness trembled.
Not violently. Not enough to shatter the prison that held her.
But just enough… to falter.
Aria felt it.
A crack in the suffocating hold wrapped around her mind. A flicker of space where her thoughts were her own again—clear, sharp, hers.
Her breath hitched.
“No…” she whispered, her voice fragile but real. “Not like this…”
The chains of shadow coiled tighter around her arms, her legs, her chest—binding, suffocating—but they no longer felt absolute.
For the first time since it had begun…
She could fight back.
Her eyes snapped open.
Silver light flared beneath the darkness, pushing against it, forcing it to recoil just slightly.
And that was enough.
“Kael!” she cried, her voice breaking free into the void.
Across the fractured space of her mind, Kael’s he
