Zevryn could not even turn around to look at Seraphina when her words sank into his mind like a venomous dagger. His body froze mid-step, the air around him turning suffocatingly heavy.
The echo of her voice, those dreadful words seemed to reverberate endlessly in his skull. For a fleeting second, the great emperor of Nythera looked like a man who had lost all sense of the world around him.
Then, within seconds, the strength left his body. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground with a dull, heart-wrenching thud. The sound echoed through the cold, stone chamber like the fall of something sacred.
His hand pressed weakly against the ground as if to steady himself, but his vision was already blurring, his breath uneven. It was as though all the life in him had been wrenched away in one brutal instant.
"Your Majesty!" Elder Yasoria's voice rang sharply across the cell, breaking the suffocating silence. Her usually calm tone trembled as she rushed toward him.
