There was no pain.
No sound.
No sense of time.
Varyan Duskveil drifted in an endless expanse of darkness.
Not falling.
Not rising.
Simply… floating.
The battlefield was gone.
The blood, the screams, the shadow, the raven—everything had vanished as if it had never existed.
Only the void remained.
It stretched infinitely in every direction, thick and suffocating, yet strangely calm. The darkness did not press against him—it welcomed him.
Varyan's body felt distant, unreal, like a forgotten shell.
Am I… alive?
The thought surfaced weakly, then faded.
Something stirred within the darkness.
Not a voice.
Not a presence.
A memory.
Fragments began to surface—broken images drifting toward him like shards of glass.
A pair of eyes reflected in water.
A name spoken long ago, in a voice he no longer recognized.
The sensation of standing alone while the world moved on without him.
"I…"
His lips did not move, yet the thought echoed through the void.
"I was…"
The darkness rippled.
Another fragment emerged.
Hands stained with blood—not from this battle, but from something far older.
A choice made.
A path taken with no return.
Varyan felt something tighten around his heart—not pain, but recognition.
So this is who I was…
The void did not answer.
Instead, a distant whisper drifted through the darkness, faint and distorted, as if carried from another existence.
Not strong enough.
The words sent a ripple through his fading consciousness.
Varyan's fingers twitched.
The memories did not fully return.
They slipped away before he could grasp them—teasing, incomplete, deliberate.
But one feeling remained.
Not regret.
Not sorrow.
Resolve.
The darkness seemed to pulse in response, slowly tightening around him, as if waiting for something… or someone.
Varyan drifted deeper into the void, his awareness dimming once more.
Yet this time—
He did not feel lost.
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