The wind carried a scent I’d never smelled before—sharp and metallic, like blood and lightning. It danced through the trees, making the leaves tremble and the hairs on my arms rise. Something had changed. Something old was waking.
We had barely slept since the encounter with the hybrids. The memory of the bone-haired woman and her haunting voice still echoed in my thoughts: You are the fulcrum. The Reckoner.
I hadn’t asked to be this. But the power pulsing under my skin didn’t care what I wanted. It was growing stronger by the hour, unpredictable and wild, like a storm building with nowhere to go.
Alistair stayed close, always watching, always guarding. His presence calmed the chaos in me, but only just. I knew he was worried. About me. About what I might become.
Selene was quieter now
