Chapter 59 The Shadow's Crown

• The Veil didn’t just fall apart when I picked life; it got thicker. The darkness twitched, sending these endless black arches rippling out, like some twisted, shadowy cathedral. The air buzzed, carrying this weird heartbeat that wasn’t even mine, but it thrummed right through my veins like it’d always been there, just waiting.
• A hall took form before me, vast and terrible. Shadow-thrones lined the edges, each carved from onyx and wrapped in smoke. Figures sat upon them—shapes without faces, yet their gazes seared through me. My heart stuttered. They weren’t strangers. Somehow, impossibly, they knew me.