C103 THE UNMAKING OF A HEART

Elara expected fire.

She expected agony.

She expected death.

But what swallowed her wasn’t flame.

It was silent.

A silence so heavy it bruised her bones and strangled her breath, as if the world had been emptied of sound, air, and time all at once.

Her eyes sprang open—

And she wasn’t falling anymore.

She was floating.

Suspended in a gulf of liquid gold