Sera's Pov
Darkness pulsed around me like a living thing.
Not the familiar stillness of my dreamscape, not the soft silver hue that blanketed the realm I'd come to know so well in sleep—this was a corrupted mirror of it. The sky, once painted in perpetual twilight, now seethed with black clouds veined by sickly red lightning. Trees bent unnaturally, bark flaking like scorched skin, their twisted branches reaching for me with creaks that sounded like groans. The air was heavy, thick like blood, and I felt it coat my lungs every time I breathed.
And most importantly, that damned crack in the sky. It had taken me a minute to stop panicking and steel myself. And just in time too.
"I was waiting for you to show up."
Lucian stood ahead.
Or at least, something wearing his face.
He didn't move. Just stood beneath the cracked sky. His eyes glowed, unnatural and cold, and his mouth curved in something between a smirk and a sneer. I willed my steps not to falter as I moved toward him.
