It didn't begin with destruction.
It began with a feeling.
A wrongness.
Subtle.
Almost unnoticeable at first
Like a single note in a melody played slightly off-key.
Nyxara felt it before she understood it.
A shift.
Deep within her consciousness.
Something… slipping.
Not outward.
Not away.
But inward.
As though something buried deep inside her had just
Moved.
Her breath caught.
Or at least, it felt like it did.
Because breathing wasn't something she fully controlled anymore.
Not since the merge.
Not since she and Cassian had become
This.
"…Cassian."
Her voice echoed in a space that wasn't quite her mind anymore.
It wasn't his either.
It was something in between.
A shared void.
A merged existence.
A place where thoughts overlapped and identities blurred at the edges.
"I feel it too."
His voice came instantly.
Tense.
Alert.
But underneath that
There was something else.
Fear.
Not the kind born from external danger.
