Duncan
The moon went dark. Not eclipsed. Not hidden behind clouds. Just gone.
One moment it hung silver and full above the tournament grounds, steady and eternal as it had been since the beginning of our kind. The next, it blinked out like a candlewick crushed between fingers.
The world followed.
Sound drained first. The hum of voices, the crackle of torches, the distant clank of steel. All of it dissolved into a suffocating vacuum, as if the night itself had drawn a breath and refused to release it.
Then the cold came.
It sank through my skin and into my bones, not the sharp bite of winter but the hollow chill of something dead brushing against something living.
Conn stirred. ‘This is not sleep.’
I didn’t remember closing my eyes. I didn’t remember falling asleep. But I was no lon
