Prologue
The world didn’t end with a bang. It ended with an eraser.
I stood on the obsidian edge of a world that shouldn’t exist, watching the sky turn a flat, clinical white. It looked like a canvas being scrubbed until the fabric tore. No wind. No sound. Just the terrifying silence of reality being un-written.
“It’s not personal, Elara,” a voice echoed—not from the air, but from the marrow of my bones. A voice that sounded like gold scraping against glass. “Every masterpiece requires a clean slate.”
I didn’t answer. My skin was humming, etched with silver lines that felt like liquid fire. Behind me, I felt a familiar cold. A shadow so heavy it had its own heartbeat. Kaelen didn’t touch me, but his presence was a jagged anchor in the nothingness.
“He’s coming for the memory, isn’t he?” I whispered.
“He’s coming for the control,” Kaelen rasped. His voice was raw, stripped of his usual kingly arrogance. “But you aren’t his drawing anymore. You’re the smudge he can’t wipe away.”
I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, but not from the cancer that had once eaten my life. They were trembling with the power to tear the sky in half.
I took a breath of ozone and ink. Somewhere, far away, I could hear a rhythmic beep... beep... beep... The ghost of a hospital room. A reminder of the girl who had been afraid of the dark.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. I was the dark.
