Chapter Thirty-Two: The Architecture of Silence
The fall did not end with an impact. It ended with the total cessation of gravity, sound, and light.
When the lead bone-ship—the great celestial predator—shattered, it didn't just break into physical debris. It tore a hole in the fabric of the "Now." I felt the transition as a sharp, cold snap, like a bone breaking in a dream. One moment, I was a girl made of ash standing in a dying cathedral of bone; the next, I was a consciousness drifting in the Great Grey.
This was not the Grey Space I had inhabited as the Grave-Queen. That had been a thin veil, a translucent layer over the living world where I could still see the outlines of trees and the warmth of Roric's soul. This was the deep Void the space between the pages of the universe. Here, there was no north or south, no sunrise or sunset. There was only the infinite, rhythmic thrum of the nothingness I had invited into my heart to save the world.
