Oracle power erupted from me like a dam bursting.
The chamber filled with silver light that made the preservation crystals flicker and dim. Magic flowed through me in patterns I'd never felt beforeânot the chaotic lightning that had cursed Theron, but something deliberate and surgical that responded to my will like an extension of my own hands.
âImpossible,â Celeste staggered backward, her new contract crumbling to ash in the supernatural wind. âYou can't break preservation spells without killing the subjects.â
âWatch me.â I placed my hand on my mother's forehead, feeling the warmth of life beneath skin that hadn't aged a day in twenty years.
The preservation spell was complex but not unbreakable. Layers of magic woven through decades of careful maintenance, designed to keep her suspen
