When the Realm of the Hollow Trial shattered, Jackson and Jian fell back into silence.
The tower was cold now—its fire long gone, its stones cracking like a corpse finally giving in to rot. Neither spoke. Neither could.
Jackson's hand still trembled around the Demon Devourer, but it wasn't the blade that frightened him. It was the echo of that other version of himself—the ruin with Alicia's blood on his hands—that refused to leave his mind. He could still feel its chains dragging against his ribs, as though some part of him had stayed behind in the ash.
Jian sat with her staff dim in her lap, staring at nothing. The word had been simple, almost casual. "You abandoned me."Just three syllables, yet they hollowed her out more thoroughly than any wound. For the first time, she wasn't sure if finding Alicia would bring salvation… or only damnation.
The ember they had found earlier pulsed once more, faintly, as if mocking them. A fragment of light caught in a place that reeked of endings.
And somewhere beneath the ruin, beneath the ash and silence, a heartbeat still thudded. Patient. Waiting.
The Vessel was not gone.
The Shadow Prince was not done.
And the punishment for cheating death had only just begun.