The void's whisper lingered in Reed's mind as consciousness returned to him. "Pewarisku"—my heir. The ancient tongue that had spoken to him reverberated through his very being, a language he somehow understood despite never having heard it before. His body felt foreign, as if his skin had been peeled off and reattached incorrectly.
Reed opened his eyes to darkness. Not the darkness of night, but the peculiar absence of light that only the void could create—a darkness that seemed to consume rather than merely exist. He blinked, and gradually shapes began to form around him. Stone walls carved with symbols. A single flame dancing in a bronze bowl. And Valerian Thorne, seated cross-legged on the floor, examining the fragmented artifact that had been extracted from Reed's chest.
