Morwenna's POV
The word clung to the air like smoke: curse.
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs rejected the air, my body frozen in place while Leofric stood over me, blade-straight, eyes locked on mine as if he, too, had heard it. Not just a word, but a warning. A whisper carried by magic older than the gods that built this cursed kingdom.
My fingers curled around the shift covering my chest. The mark burned beneath the fabric, not in pain, but something worse—it pulsed. Like a heartbeat beneath skin not my own.
"Did you hear it?" I asked, voice barely a whisper.
Leofric nodded once, his face pale and unreadable. "We need to leave this room. Now."
But I didn’t move.
I stared past him, to the place where the sound had come from. No door had creaked. No shadow moved. Yet I felt it. As thoug
