Darkness.
Not the absence of light, but something deeper. Primordial. The kind of darkness that had existed before creation, before the first stars ignited, before reality itself had taken its current form.
Jaenor existed in this darkness as barely more than a thought. A wisp of consciousness clinging to existence through sheer stubborn refusal to dissolve completely. His body was gone—consumed by Suyajna, absorbed into her ascending form. His memories were scattered, fragmented. His power had been drained to nothing.
He should have been dead. Completely, irrevocably dead.
But the Arkwright bloodline was cursed with resilience. Even reduced to almost nothing, that genetic stubbornness kept a spark of him intact. A single ember that refused to extinguish.
And Ba'narussa had saved part of him.
