AYLA'S POV
The forest had never been so quiet.
Wolves followed me in silence, their paws padding over earth scorched black from the last battle. None dared speak, not even Cassia, who usually filled every silence with sharp words. Their eyes pressed into my back as if they already knew what I was going to say.
I didn't stop walking until the trees thinned and the earth opened into a scar.
The abyss.
It was not a hole in the ground, not a cave, not even something the earth itself should be able to contain. It was absence—an endless wound where the world simply… ended. Shadows bled from it in slow curls, hissing when they touched the light.
I stood at its edge, the soil crumbling beneath my boots, and stared into the black. My chest tightened, my lungs struggling to fill.
He's down there.
I could feel him. Faint, so faint it terrified me, but alive.
The bond was nearly gone, shredded by distance—or whatever this place was—but I refused to let go.
"He's gone."
