The world was nothing but black.
Not the safe dark behind closed eyes, but a weight. A pressure. The kind of black that felt like it had hands.
At the epicenter of the fourth inner circle, the black cauldron breathed.
It was too vast to be an object and too still to be alive. Its curved walls rose like a horizon, swallowing everything. Inside, there was no floor, no sky—just a hollow world of shadow.
At its heart floated seven small flames, hung in the void above nothing.
Seven lights in a dead universe.
Each flame burned with a different color, steady and unwavering, warping the dark around it. Crimson. Azure. Amethyst. Jade. Ivory. Onyx.
And Gold.
The amethyst flame pulsed faintly, as if it had its own heartbeat. Its violet glow bled into the black, bleeding a thin halo into the void. Whispers seemed to coil around it, threads of fate twisting and unknotting in its light.
Then, without warning, the amethyst flame flickered.
Just once.
