A dome of darkness expanded outward.
Fifty meters. Sixty. The light didn't fade—it simply ceased to exist, as if the concept of illumination had been surgically removed from that patch of reality. The fog, the ruined buildings, the distant sounds of Grey and Bruno's battles—all of it vanished behind a wall of absolute black.
Three people remained inside.
The woman's first response was panic.
"WHAT—WHERE—I CAN'T—"
No sound left her mouth.
Her screams died three inches from her lips, swallowed by the darkness like stones dropped into a black sea. She couldn't hear her own breathing. Couldn't hear her heartbeat. Couldn't hear anything except—
"You're loud."
Kael's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Directly inside her skull, somehow bypassing the silence, carrying that particular tone of amused cruelty that had become his signature.
"Your thoughts, I mean. They're screaming. It's giving me a headache."
