The door was never physical. It was symbolic. What needed to open wasn’t a passage… but her will.

But then she remembers: her mother, drowning in blood. Hayden, laughing among ruins. Dairon, saying her name like it saves him.

With a scream, she channels all the gauntlet’s power and turns it against the door. Not to open it, but to seal it. She rewrites the seal with her own blood, becoming the new anchor of Ajun. And the abyss responds. It trembles. Screams. But yields.

The magical explosion throws her unconscious, and for days, she floats between worlds.

When she wakes, Dairon is beside her, wounded. The war has begun without them. Yvelia burns. Madra has crossed the threshold, using Carrion and his network of mercenaries as her vanguard.

—There’s no time to heal —he says, wrapping her in his bloodstained cloak—. But you can still stop her.

Saeris, staggering, accepts her role.

She no longer runs.

She no longer denies.

The heart of the abyss wasn’t the door.

It was herself.

And she’s ready to burn.