Sarya stood at the top of the stairs, except there were no stairs anymore.
The First Road had settled back into ordinary stone beneath her feet, unremarkable and solid, as though the staircase leading down into the deepest part of everything had simply never existed at all.
Grace, Father, Kael, Elias, and Aren remained exactly where she had left them, watching her with the particular stillness of people who had just witnessed something disappear into a place they couldn't follow, and now had to reconcile that absence with her sudden, ordinary return.
Nobody moved for a long moment.
Sarya understood why. She had vanished into something none of them could have described, and now she stood before them again, and there was nothing about the moment that felt like it deserved silence — and yet the silence held anyway, heavy with all the fear they hadn't let themselves fully voice while she was gone.
