Chapter 104
The moment Kael guided Ariana forward, the space around them shifted as if something long restrained had finally been allowed to happen. The narrow fracture stretched wider, its edges sharpening unnaturally as the air grew heavier and colder, pressing in from all sides with a weight that didn't belong to the clearing.
What had been resisting before began to give way, not breaking all at once, but loosening in pieces. The domain no longer pushed them back with the same force, and the ground beneath their feet steadied instead, as if it had stopped trying to hold them in place and had chosen to let them pass.
"Kael," Mira called out, her voice sharper now, but there was something else beneath it this time that made it different. It wasn't just command anymore, but warning, the kind that came too late to stop what had already begun.
