Vetra Helena Nivarre did not collapse like a woman who had just been erased. She stood for a heartbeat longer than the laws of anatomy should allow, her silhouette framed against the dying light of the chandeliers.
A small, enigmatic smile lingered on her lips, a final ghost of the Regent she had been, before it began to fade into a mask of pure, unadulterated agony.
The change began with her eyes.
It started as a pinprick of darkness in the corners, like ink dropped into a clear pool. But this was not liquid; it was a corruption that seemed to well up from her very soul. It was black, a flat, light-eating void that was fundamentally wrong. The guards closest to her were the first to see it. They stepped back instinctively, their hands flying to the hilts of their weapons, their eyes wide. One of them began to stammer, "Your Majesty, " but the word died in his throat.
