AELIA REVA
The instant Wixar's hand clamped around my wrist, the world shattered.
Not with a crack or a thunderclap—nothing so mercifully ordinary. It tore apart in silence, soundless and suffocating, as though every breath I had ever taken had been stolen in a single blink. One heartbeat I was still standing in the ruined corridor of the fortress, the next I was swallowed whole into a cavern of nothingness.
I stumbled forward, gasping, reaching for walls that weren't there. The ground beneath my boots didn't exist. I only knew I hadn't fallen into an abyss because Wixar's hand still burned cold into my skin, anchoring me with the unyielding pressure of his grip.
"Welcome," his voice slithered through the void, distorted, as if spoken by a dozen throats at once. "To my dominion. Where only shadows answer back."
