Darkness.
Not the absence of light, but something deeper.
Primordial of the immemorial.
The kind of darkness that had existed before creation, before the first stars ignited, before reality itself had taken its current form.
Jaenor existed in this darkness as barely more than a thought. A wisp of consciousness clinging to existence through sheer stubborn refusal to dissolve completely. His whole essence was consumed by Suyajna, absorbed into her ascending form. His power had been drained to nothing.
He should have been dead.
Completely, irrevocably dead.
But the Arkwright bloodline was cursed with resilience. Even reduced to almost nothing, that genetic stubbornness kept a spark of him intact. A single ember that refused to extinguish.
And Ba'narussa had saved part of him.
