The underground chamber was silent. Not the kind of silence that came with peace, but the kind that stretched before a storm.
Before a war.
Damien's steel-gray eyes were locked on the obsidian door, his grip firm around the blackened blade. His breath had steadied, but the weight of what he had seen, of what he had remembered, refused to fade.
This wasn't new.
This wasn't happening for the first time.
The war had already happened.
The seals weren't built to protect the world from an outside force.
They were built to bury what came before.
To bury him.
And now, they were failing.
—
The Weight of Truth
The others were watching him.
Erynn's silver eyes were sharp, unreadable. Dante's usual smirk had vanished, replaced with something dangerously close to concern. Selene, Carys, and Amara stood nearby, each processing what they had just felt.
Because they had all felt it.
The shift in the world.