The room had no walls.
No floor. No ceiling.
Just white—endless, seamless, humming with the quiet tension of a held breath. It wasn't a place. It was a pause. A neutral fold between realities, stitched together by old treaties and older fears.
And in its center, three chairs.
Not thrones. Not command seats. Just simple wooden chairs, arranged in a loose triangle. One scorched at the edge. One wrapped in frost. One polished to sterile perfection.
They arrived separately.
First came Aria.
She stepped out of shadow like it owed her rent—long coat dusted with ash, eyes still glowing faintly from Stonehenge. Her fingers twitched once, as if resisting the urge to summon flame. She sat without a word, crossing one leg over the other. The air around her warmed. Frost on the nearest chair melted instantly.
Then Lysander.
