Reia couldn't move.
That was the first thing she registered. No hands. No feet. No ability to blink or swallow or turn her head. Just awareness, trapped inside a body that refused to respond.
She was suspended in something that wasn't quite darkness. It was more like the absence of everything—light, sound, warmth, time. A void that pressed against her from all sides without touching her at all.
Beside her, Vyn hung in the same nothingness.
Vyn's eyes were closed. Her face was peaceful, like she'd fallen asleep and forgotten to wake up. Reia had been watching her for what felt like forever, counting the seconds between Vyn's barely visible breaths.
One breath. Two breaths. Three.
Counting kept her sane.
The bindings that held them weren't ropes or chains. They weren't even energy in the way cultivators understood it. They were more like rules—concepts made physical, pressing down on every part of them that mattered. Movement. Speech. Power.
All blocked.
All silenced.
