Elliot remained still, though the embroidery upon his robes dimmed. The Lord's avatar endured, yet even his white-gold radiance became distant, reduced to a faint outline behind an ocean of absent darkness.
Only the Hollow Woman appeared unchanged; perhaps there had never been enough inside her for the void to take.
For one breathless moment, the entire hall belonged to absence.
Then Danton snapped his fingers.
A blaze ring of fire erupted around him, gold, white and deeper than both, carrying a strange first-born quality that made even the void recoil.
The Flames of Beginning burst outward in a clean, sovereign shockwave, returning light to the chamber not gently, but as though it were conquest and darkness and void retreated from the flames in writhing folds, dragging themselves backward across the altar as though ancient night had remembered the first sunrise and hated it.
The Eternal Prison Gates slammed shut, and the chamber reappeared.
