Kora’s POV
The compound was eerily quiet the next morning. The courtyard, once soaked in blood and noise, lay still under a gray sky. The bodies had been taken away, the stones scrubbed clean, but the smell of iron lingered like a ghost.
I stood at the window of Edward’s chamber, my hands pressed to the cold glass, staring at the gates. Beyond them, the forest stretched out like a living thing, dark and endless. Somewhere out there, Aaron was moving. Watching. Waiting.
The fire inside me hadn’t quieted. It simmered under my skin, restless, as if it remembered the fight as clearly as I did. It pulsed with each beat of my heart, a low thrum that made it impossible to forget what I’d done.
What I could do again.
A knock sounded at the door.
I turned, expecting Edward, but Mara slipped i
