The Night Court fell quiet after the warning. I sent the guards from my chambers and waited on the balcony. If Selene reached my home, she would find me awake.
The smell arrived first, rot mixed with corrupted magic. Flowers in the garden below curled in their beds as it passed.
Claws scraped the stone beneath my hands, and a figure pulled itself over the balustrade.
Selene still had her face, though the jaw opened too far when she breathed. The rest had changed.
Insect joints divided her long limbs, black sacs pulsed where skin had torn away, and four green eyes fixed on me from two rows.
"The crown, Fenrir, the power. All of it was meant for me. You stole it!"
She lunged before the last word left her mouth. A barbed limb snapped from her wrist toward my heart and tore a strip from
