The vision claimed Selena as she watched the final star fall from the dying sky, her consciousness torn from her body like a moth drawn to flame. One moment she stood on the palace balcony, witnessing the cosmic horror unfolding across the Hollow, and the next she found herself in a place that existed between heartbeats, in the spaces where memory and prophecy converged.
She stood in what had once been a throne room, though time and neglect had transformed it into something resembling a mausoleum. The walls were constructed from black marble veined with silver, but the veins moved with liquid grace, flowing like mercury through stone. Pillars carved from what appeared to be fossilized bone supported a ceiling lost in shadow, and the air itself seemed thick with the weight of centuries. This was not a place meant for the living, yet it pulsed with a vitality that spoke of death denied, of endings refused.
