Sleep did not come gently.
Nicole found herself standing in ash.
The air was thick with smoke and iron, the ground beneath her littered with bodies she recognized before she wanted to. Her tribe—Kanza's tribe lay torn apart, blood staining the earth in dark, spreading patterns. The screams had already faded. What remained was silence… and him.
Kanza stood at the center of it all.
He looked powerful—unnaturally so. His body radiated something dark and wrong, his posture no longer familiar. The Duchess's influence clung to him like a second skin, whispering into his mind, hollowing him out from the inside.
His eyes were black. Empty. Gone.
Nicole tried to call out to him. Tried to move.
She couldn't speak.
She couldn't cry.
Pain flooded her instead searing, unbearable like hot coals being pressed into her skin again and again. She wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat.
"Kanza…" she thought, desperately.
He turned slowly.
