The silence that followed the explosion of darkness was suffocating. Amara's body felt weightless, as if she were drifting in a void, lost between the world of the living and the unknown beyond. There was no sound, no light—only the endless black that surrounded her, pressing in from all sides.
For a moment, she wasn't sure if she was still alive. Her mind struggled to grasp at memories, at the last few moments before everything had gone dark. The altar. The ritual. The overwhelming surge of dark magic.
*Thalia…*
Then, like a candle flickering back to life in the night, awareness returned. Pain flooded through her body in sharp, agonizing waves, dragging her back to reality. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air, her limbs trembling as she forced herself to move.