The space between the Black Court's dissolution and the Gate's full manifestation held a silence that pressed against consciousness like deep water pressure. In that moment of terrible anticipation, when reality strained to accommodate presence too vast for containment, a cold wind began to blow through the formless space where the Empire had fallen.
It was not the negating cold of the Abyss or the purposeful darkness of the Gate's servants. This cold carried memory within it recollection of snowfall on mountain peaks, of winter's first frost painting patterns on windows, of the crystalline beauty that existed in the moment before ice began its inevitable melt. It was cold that preserved rather than destroyed, that held rather than consumed.
