The void was never truly empty.
It breathed.
—THRUM—
Sunless stood upon cracked marble in the heart of a long-forgotten citadel, where the fossilized remains of a dead god had fused with the roots of the Dream Realm itself. The floor beneath his boots was cold and ancient, veined with pale fractures that pulsed faintly, like dying nerves still remembering pain.
The air—if it could be called air—pressed in on him with suffocating silence.
Not quiet.
Silence.
The kind that crushed the eardrums like deep water and made thoughts feel too loud.
Above him stretched no sky at all, but a colossal vortex of bruised black and pale violet, rotating with agonizing slowness. Threads of corrupted essence spat outward from its depths—
—CRACKLE—
—and drifted down like snowfall.
No.
Not snow.
Petals.
They rose instead of fell, drifting upward against all reason—delicate petals of translucent pink flame, their edges veined with creeping shadow. They bloomed from nothing, lived for a heartbeat, then unraveled into blackened wisps that stained the void with the scent of ash… and distant cherry blossoms.
Each petal brushed against his armor and dissolved—
—HISS—
—leaving behind a chill that slid beneath steel, sank through flesh, and gnawed softly at bone.
Sunless watched them with detached curiosity.
He had seen too many beautiful things try to kill him.
His silhouette cut sharply through the haze: tall, lean, wrapped in layered onyx mail that devoured what little light existed. The plates were etched with faint, shifting runes—memories of a Forgotten Shore forge, refined and reforged through countless sleepless nights. A high collar framed his jaw. Long black hair, bound into a severe tail, drifted in a wind that came from nowhere and went nowhere.
At his hip rested a sheathed blade.
Quiet.
Watchful.
Unmistakable.
The sword had no name.
It did not need one.
It knew what it was.
Beautiful, Sunny thought dryly.
And deadly.
Just like everything else here.
He exhaled.
The breath left him as a thin ribbon of shadow that coiled once around his wrist—
—WHISP—
—before vanishing.
The shadows were restless tonight.
Behind him, Saint stood in absolute stillness—a towering statue of black stone and unyielding devotion. Her ruby eyes glowed faintly, dimmed to dying embers.
Further back, Fiend crouched among the ruins, a mountainous silhouette of obsidian scales and restrained hunger. His massive tail flicked lazily against a broken column—
—THUD—
—sending fragments skittering across the floor.
Nightmare lingered deeper in the darkness, patient as an executioner who knew time itself was his ally.
And coiled around Sunny's own shadow—woven so tightly that no light could tell where one ended and the other began—was Serpent. Sleek. Venomous. Smiling in a way only Sunny could feel.
They were his court.
His only court.
The Lord of Shadows needed no throne when oblivion itself bowed at his feet.
Yet even here—
In this exile he had chosen—
He was not truly alone.
A faint tug brushed against the core of his soul.
An invisible tether.
Unbreakable.
Unforgiving.
The Shadow Bond.
It carried no words. No images. Only direction. Distance. Presence.
Enough to know she lived.
Enough to know she burned brighter than ever.
Nephis.
Changing Star.
The name tasted like frost and fire.
Sunny closed his eyes and let the petals wash over him.
Far away, beyond fractured gates and broken skies, the waking world staggered onward. Humanity clawed desperately toward something resembling order.
Two Sovereigns remained.
Anvil of Valor, enthroned in his glittering fortress of steel.
Ki Song, ruling from her veiled empire of flame and melody.
Between them stretched a fragile truce—maintained by Awakened who remembered, all too well, the price of open war. The great clans circled like wolves in deep winter. Smiles polite. Blades sheathed.
Eyes starving.
Whispers spread like rot.
Valor grew restless.
Song hoarded secrets.
The next war would not be fought with armies—
—but with knives in the dark.
With prophecies bent just enough to break the world.
Sunny opened his eyes.
Let them whisper.
He had heard worse.
He had lived worse.
The petals quickened, spiraling into fleeting shapes—wings, crowns, falling blossoms caught in an unseen updraft.
One drifted close.
Close enough to graze his cheek.
For a single instant, he saw something in its heart—
A flicker of silver-white flame.
Pure.
Cold.
His hand rose before thought could stop it.
Gloved fingers closed around the petal.
—CRACK—
It did not burn.
It simply ceased to exist—crumbling into black ash that slipped between his knuckles and vanished into the void.
A memory surfaced.
Snow.
Antarctica.
A girl with silver hair, standing amidst obedient flames like fallen stars. She had looked at him then—not through him. Not past him.
At him.
And said nothing.
She never needed to.
Silence had always spoken louder between them.
He wondered what she saw when she looked into fire now.
Whether she still searched for a shadow that refused to step into her light.
Sunny lowered his hand.
The citadel stretched endlessly around him—its halls shattered and exposed to the vortex above. Pillars lay toppled like the ribs of a colossal corpse. Beyond a broken archway waited deeper fragments—places even he seldom walked.
He had spent months here.
Mapping the corpse of a dead god.
Harvesting echoes.
Growing stronger.
Alone.
But even solitude had its limits.
The tether tugged again.
Sharper.
Not urgent.
Never urgent with her.
Just… inevitable.
A reminder that time still moved for those bound to flesh and daylight.
Sunny turned away from the storm of petals.
"It's time," he said.
His voice did not echo.
—ABSORBED—
Saint stepped forward.
Fiend rose, the ground trembling faintly—
—RUMBLE—
Nightmare emerged like a thought made real.
Serpent slid deeper into Sunny's shadow, fangs bared in silent anticipation.
The Lord of Shadows took one final look at the swirling petals—pink and black, beautiful and broken—
—and stepped into the nearest pool of darkness.
—WHOOM—
The citadel vanished.
The void folded.
And somewhere far away—
In a bastion of steel and ice beneath an Antarctic sun that never truly warmed the world—
A blind girl lifted her head.
As if listening.
Cassie's lips curved into a faint, troubled smile.
"He's coming back," she whispered.
Outside her window, snow began to fall.
Slow.
Silent.
Inevitable.