POV: THE FIRSTBORN
I expand.
My consciousness reaches out like light through water, wrapping around the pulsing malevolence of Corvin's bomb. It feels wrong—dragonbane twisted with explosive magic, a perversion of the natural order designed to destroy everything I've tried to protect.
Ten thousand years I've existed.
Ten thousand years of watching, guiding, fearing. Always fearing.
The bomb begins its terrible work, magic unraveling in preparation to tear reality apart. I fold myself around it, my essence becoming a cage, a cocoon, a desperate embrace of something that wants only to destroy.
Pain blooms immediately. Not physical—I abandoned physical form when I sealed the Void—but something deeper. The agony of holding contradictions within yourself. The torture of containing destruction while trying to preserve life.
I've been so afraid for so long.
