The dust from the staff fragment curled upward like incense, vanishing into the stale air. The room, still trembling in the aftermath, fell into an eerie hush. Not the silence of peace—no, this was the breath held before another storm.
West stared at his empty palm. Frost's last anchor, now gone. His knees buckled, but he remained upright, forced by the gravity of everything he had just reawakened.
Levi coughed, dragging himself up from behind a shattered column. "Is it over?" he asked, voice brittle.
"No," West whispered. His voice was hollow, distant, as if it had to cross a frozen wasteland to reach his lips. "She's not gone. That wasn't her."
Sebastian turned to him slowly, eyes narrowed. "Then what was that?"
"A shadow," West said. "Something she fought to keep sealed. Something tied to her, bound when she bound the gate. But she—Frost—Thawsoul—she crossed through. Not to escape, but to become the seal itself."
