The collapse did not begin with noise.
It began with silence, heavy, absolute, suffocating. The kind of silence that comes just before a world decides to fall apart. Lindarion felt it shudder through his bones, a deep vibration that rippled up his spine and into the base of his skull where the fragment had sunk.
Nysha felt it too. She grabbed his arm, hard enough to bruise. "We need to move. Now."
Ashwing's wings snapped open at the same instant the first crack erupted across the cavern ceiling. Pebbles rained down, then chunks of stone. Dust spiraled like a storm. The void-heart shell, now empty, was crumbling inward.
Lindarion didn't panic. He simply turned toward the far end of the collapsing chamber, focusing on a tremor he could feel beneath the noise. "There's a path."
Nysha didn't question him. She trusted his instincts too much, even when they scared her.
