The silence of the garden was absolute, a heavy velvet shroud that seemed to press against Eris's eardrums. For a fraction of a second, she allowed herself the luxury of doubt.
I imagined it, she thought, the logic of a desperate mind grasping for a rational anchor. I am depleted, I am cold, and my mind is inventing ghosts to fill the vacuum Soren left behind.
But then the voice came again, crisp, effortless, and possessing a tonal weight that no hallucination could mimic.
Her body reacted before her consciousness could give the order. She spun, the heavy woolen blanket swirling around her ankles like a dark cloud.
In the center of the frost-flower patch, the moonlight began to warp. It wasn't the natural, pale glow of the moon; it was a different quality of silver entirely, a searing, pearlescent radiance that she hadn't seen since the moment she had stood in the void between deaths.
