Phei floated in the centre of the ruined hall, the colossal void-hand still crushing Harold Maxton's skull like a fragile egg. The storm of absolute darkness around him pulsed — a deep, cosmic heartbeat that made the mansion's walls bow inward like living flesh, the marble floor ripple like black water, and the very air bend and stretch until it screamed in protest.
Eira shot forward, crystalline wings blazing with glacial fire.
"Master!" she cried, voice slicing through the howling void. "Whatever you do — do not kill a Legacy! Not until the Destined Day!"
Phei's void-black eyes — twin abysses ringed in glacial white — flicked to her for one heartbeat.
Then he smiled.
The smile was not human. It belonged to something that had spent a very long time in a very small cage and had just remembered it could break the bars whenever it wanted.
Had always been able to.
Had simply been waiting for a reason.
He closed his fist.
The void-hand vanished.
