A tear rent the air behind them a sound that did not echo but devoured silence itself. Elira's head whipped around to face the sound as Kael took a stumbling step back, his hand clawing at his chest where the final strand of the Null Thread blazed like a dying star.
"Kael!" she screamed, her voice frayed with fear.
His form shimmered, just for a breath as though the world were struggling to remember he existed. Then he re-solidified, his eyes glowing with unstable voidlight. He met her gaze, and for a heartbeat, there was something in them that did not belong. Something vast. Ancient. Watching.
"I'm fine," he said, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him.
They stood at the edge of the Cradle of Threads, where the remains of the reality-weft had begun to come undone. The sky above them was a hue that was neither gray nor black, but somehow between, as if it were ashes wet with tears.
