The stars began to blink. One by one, they went dark, not extinguished, but turning inward, folding into themselves like eyes closing in sleep.Azura felt it before she saw it: that deep, crawling pressure in the air, the slow, deliberate draw of something too vast to name. It was like the universe inhaling after holding its breath for eons.The Silence had awakened. She stood in the center of a meadow that shimmered with dew made of starlight. The Dawn Child slept beside her, curled in the grass, glowing faintly.Each rise and fall of the girl’s chest pulsed through the world; her breathing was the rhythm of creation itself. But tonight, that rhythm had faltered.Kael’s voice was gone, no whisper, no warmth beneath her ribs. Only the echo of his last word: remember.Azura knelt and brushed the child’s hair back from her face. The light beneath her skin flickered like a candle in wind. “Come on, little one,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”The sky pulsed in response, black veins crawli