Seirion walked slowly toward the threshold of his temple, his shoulders slumped. The silence of the abyss had devoured everything, and with it, the white spark that was Erian. Seirion had seen him fall, shatter against the roots like a wounded bird. And he had done nothing about it.
He couldn't. The curse that bound him to the temple was still there, invisible but tangible like a wall of iron.
He was about to cross the threshold, ready to return to his eternal silence, but then he stopped.
He felt something.
A heartbeat.
A spark of life.
Seirion froze and jerked his head up, his amber pupils contracting. In the distance, where the abyss stretched endlessly, something stirred faintly. He summoned his divine vision and, through the dust and dimness, saw a body collapsed on the cracked ground.
Erian.
The human lay there, bloodied… but alive.
Erian was alive.
Against all logic, against every law… he was still alive.
