Cassandra’s necklace lay heavy in my hand. Its black gemstones caught the early morning light filtering through my study window, glittering like polished obsidian.
The pendant she’d worn since I first knew her—yet somehow, the innocent charm had nearly driven me to madness, despite being harmless the whole time as nothing more than just a nice looking decoration for Cassandra.
I rolled it between my fingers, feeling its weight and recalling the burning intensity that had nearly consumed me during my first shift. The pain, the disorientation, the loss of control—it hadn’t been the usual agony of transformation, but a sensation as though something foreign, something powerful, had latched onto my mind, pushing me to the brink.
Cassandra had looked at me that night with a mix of horror an
