A working so old it had been struck from imperial memory, not because it failed... but because it worked too well.
The air did not freeze.
It went dead.
Sound dulled first. The distant collapse of the palace faded, as if the corridor had been wrapped in thick velvet. Even Bianca's own breath felt swallowed.
Eris lifted her hand to summon fire.
Nothing answered.
No flame. No spark. Not even heat.
What should have burned simply… vanished.
Eris took a step backward, and for the first time, her expression sharpened, not with anger, but calculation. The power inside her surged, pressing against her ribs, her veins, her spine.
It had nowhere to go.
Her fire was not being smothered.
It was being denied.
"Oh," Eris murmured, quiet with something dangerously close to interest. "So that's what you became."
Bianca laughed, thin and wild. "Trapped," she hissed. "All that fire—and nowhere to let it breathe."
She didn't give Eris time to adapt.
