The First Heir

The blackness wasn't just an absence of light.

It was alive.

It swallowed sound, movement—everything. A vast, stretching nothingness that made my breath catch in my throat.

For a terrifying second, I didn't know if I was still standing. If my body still existed.

Then—

A hand gripped my wrist.

Solid. Real.

Cairon.

The moment our skin touched, the void shuddered. The darkness trembled like a living thing, recoiling from the contact.

And just like that—

I could see again.

But not as before.

The ruins were gone. The robed figures were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, we stood on an endless plane of black marble, stretching into nothingness. The sky above was a swirling void, shifting with shadows that moved like ink dissolving in water.

The air was thick, pressing, humming with something ancient.

The Codex.

It was still in my hands, its surface pulsing with a dull, rhythmic throb.