AYLA'S POV
That was the first thing I felt when I woke. Not the biting cold of wind or frost, but the hollow, marrow-deep chill of absence.
My hands reached instinctively, searching for him—his warmth, his heartbeat, his weight beside me. But there was nothing. Only the soft press of earth beneath me, the lingering hiss of smoke in the air, and the suffocating silence left in his wake.
"Kael?" My voice cracked on his name, too fragile, too desperate.
No answer.
I pushed myself upright, my limbs trembling with the effort. Every muscle ached, my skin burned as though raw from within, and my veins felt hollow, drained. I remembered—pouring everything I had into him, forcing my light into his darkness, holding him up when he should have collapsed.
And then—
My chest seized. The memory hit like a blade. His roar, my body slipping, his face turning toward me, then that thing—those shadows wrapping around him, dragging him into the abyss.
