Darkness fell across the palace, bringing no peace to the princess's chambers.
Rui tossed in her silken sheets, her body restless, though exhaustion weighed heavily on her limbs.
The negotiations had drained her, yet sleep remained elusive.
In her dream, she stood at the edge of a vast emptiness. The Void stretched before her, not truly black but an absence of everything—light, sound, hope.
From its depths, tendrils of corruption reached for her, each one whispering with voices that seemed achingly familiar.
"Princess..." they called, their tones distorted. "Daughter of two realms... come home to us."
The corruption wrapped around her ankles and her wrists, climbing her body like living shadows. Cold seeped into her bones as the voices grew louder.
"You cannot escape what you are," they hissed. "What you were meant to be."
Rui tried to summon her chaos core, her celestial energy, but both remained dormant as the Void consumed her inch by inch.
