Dawn light hit the blood on the floor and made it look like gold.
Fake gold. Kyle’s gold. The kind that buys life but costs everything.
I sat on the stone with Damien’s arms around me. Bella’s ash box in my lap. Kyle’s blade at my feet. The Reapers gone. But the red at the edges of the sky stayed.
Wrong red. Not sunrise red. Warning red.
“Something woke up,” Damien said. Voice low. Beast right under the surface. He hadn’t let me go. Like if he did, I’d slip through his fingers and into Death’s hands.
I nodded. Could feel it too. Under the castle. Deep. Old. Older than his 200 years. Older than the north. It heard Kyle’s blood spill. Heard Bella’s name.
And it remembered.
The floor cracked again. Not loud this time. A whisper. Like stone taking a breath after holding it for centurie
