"Rowan."
My father’s voice, thick with a king's authority and a father's burgeoning dread, sliced through the violet haze in my mind.
I blinked, and the darkness that had been bleeding from my fingertips snapped back under my skin like a coiled snake. The image of me lifting the witch by her throat, of the shadows swallowing the room, and of my voice echoing like a god's—it all vanished. It had been a vision, a projection of the raw, monstrous hunger vibrating in my marrow. I hadn't moved. I was still sitting in my chair, draped in an air of practiced boredom, while the shards of the crystal ball still rattled on the oak table.
The witch was gasping, clutching her chest, pointing a shaking finger at Isla, who stood frozen behind me.
"I don't know how a demon entered this sacred space,"
