The words settled in the air like a seal upon reality.
"Welcome home."
Liria felt the weight of them press against her skin, sinking deeper, threading into her bones like ink into parchment. The last tether to her former world unraveled, slipping from her grasp without resistance.
There was no mourning. No hesitation.
She let it go.
A pulse of energy radiated from where her fingers met the Dark Sovereign's hand. It wasn't just warmth it was a force, coiling around her, sinking into the spaces between thought and instinct. The sensation should have been overwhelming. It wasn't.
It was familiar.
The throne room faded. Not as if it had been erased, but as though it had never truly existed, dissolving into a canvas of shifting darkness. The vast emptiness did not feel hollow. It breathed, alive with unseen currents, pressing in from all directions.
