The world peeled away from me without warning.
The armory bled into nothing, the stone and steel dissolving like ink dropped into water, edges blurring, sounds stretching thin until they snapped.
One heartbeat I was standing over bodies that should have haunted me forever. The next, there was only white.
Then weight.
Then breath.
I staggered and caught myself, boots scraping against solid ground.
My body felt wrong for half a second, too big, too heavy, too mine, and then everything settled into place. I was back in my own body.
Not the shrunken, helpless thing from before.
Not the child locked in the dark.
Me.
I clenched my hands.
Power surged through my fingers, raw and familiar and violently alive.
Mana flowed freely again, answering me without resistance, coiling under my skin like a patient predator.
It felt different than before.
Sharper.
More honest.
Less restrained.
I exhaled slowly, shoulders dropping.
I was glad.
Not relieved. Not guilty.
Glad.
