She looked at me.
Her.
The girl with porcelain skin. The entity of shadow and silence. The creature whose mere touch had undone reality, shattered will, vaporized resistance. She had no crown, no scepter, no loud voice. And yet, no gaze had ever weighed so heavily on me.
Her black eyes pierced through me.
They weren't human eyes. Nor were they divine. They were openings, living abysses. Bottomless mirrors in which all intent dissolved.
— You… stay.
Her voice was flat. Unassailable. She wasn't asking. She wasn't suggesting. She was stating.
And that's when the pain caught up to me. Not a new pain, but the one my body had held back for too long. A tidal wave of torn nerves, lacerated flesh, strength ripped from its foundations. I couldn't utter a word. My breath caught in my throat. My legs, emptied of their grounding, collapsed beneath me as if I had never been made to stand before her.
I fell.
One knee, then the other.
