Northern stepped back through the doorway.
The first thing everyone noticed was the silence.
The screaming had stopped.
The churning red mist—eight hundred years of accumulated violence, of divine punishment, of constellation-blessed judgment—was simply gone. Through the massive doorway, they could see clean mist rising peacefully from the ascending waterfalls. Golden light from the setting sun filtering through. Normal sky doing normal sky things.
No crimson. No tortured souls. No eternal prison.
Nothing.
'Well. That's going to be a problem.'
Northern walked to the nearest chair, deposited Alystren and the elf with about as much ceremony as one might drop off laundry, and sat down heavily. He looked exhausted—not physically, but in the way someone looks after having an argument with themselves and losing.
Or winning.
Hard to tell which was worse, honestly.
