Auren wasn't sure what had just happened.
What he'd heard—or if he'd even heard anything at all.
It was like a thousand storms collided and detonated inside his skull, crashing and howling with relentless fury. Somewhere within that chaos, buried deep in the heart of the storm, was a voice—cold, distant, and terrifyingly composed.
It wasn't a voice that spoke. It was a presence that declared.
The storm itself was made of darkness. Cold. Hollow. A wind of catastrophic change that clawed at his soul with unseen talons. Fear didn't rise—it sank. Curled deep into the marrow of his bones and made its home there.
This wasn't the kind of fear that could be explained, not one that feelings could properly describe. It wasn't human.
It was domain.
A domain that assaulted his very being—merciless, wicked, lifeless. A force that didn't observe or judge. It simply was. And it crushed.
