The underground chamber didn’t explode.
It bled.
Stone screamed as shadow tore through it, light searing cracks into the walls where Aria stood at the center of it all—chains snapping, runes dissolving like ash under rain. Her breath came in ragged pulls, blood streaking down her arms, eyes burning with a triune glow that wasn’t meant to exist in one body.
Jack stumbled back, shielding his face as the pressure crushed inward.
“You were never supposed to break that,” he shouted.
Aria stepped forward.
Each footstep warped the floor.
“You were never supposed to touch me,” she said quietly.
The air folded. Jack ran out of that basement straight to the trap house he prepared for Adrian and Dominic.
Above ground, the warehouse detonated in chaos. And everyone felt her energy.
Dominic
