Raizen's mouth parted slightly. He didn't understand what had happened.
Raizen was too stunned to speak.
Because the cold whisper didn't feel like it was for him.
It felt like it waws speaking past him, through his mind, toward the thing in the sphere.
And Ignorance quietly obeyed.
Elin's gaze sharpened. She looked at the sphere, then at Raizen, then back to the sphere, as if she couldn't decide if the thing's weird behavior had anything to do with him.
The Ruler stared at the sphere for a long moment. Then his expression softened, not into relief, but into something that made Raizen's chest ache unexpectedly.
Melancholy.
The Ruler reached and picked up the sphere.
It fit in his palm easily, and he held it like holding a memory he didn't know how to bury.
For a second he only looked at the darkness suspended at the center of the crystal, smooth and quiet now, and Raizen realized the Ruler wasn't looking at a monster.
He was looking at his past.
