The crack in the seal was not violent.
It did not explode or scream or tear the sky apart. It simply existed—a thin fracture of wrongness stretching across the threshold like a scar that refused to heal.
Kael felt it constantly now.
A pressure behind every thought. A reminder that time, once bought, was nearly spent.
The void beyond no longer whispered. It waited.
And waiting, Kael had learned, was far more dangerous than rage.