The crackling aftershock of the flash still hung in the air like burnt metal when the screaming stopped.
Bodies shifted. Weapons lowered just enough to breathe. Smoke thinned.
And there—on the shattered stone floor, Yomi and Nero lay bound, wrists lashed with silver-threaded restraints that hissed and smoked against their skin. Nero writhed once, a strangled snarl tearing from his throat before the silver burned him silent. Yomi coughed blood, eyes dim but still burning with that venomous calm.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Dimitri stood beside me, chest heaving, half-shifted and blood-streaked. His hand still trembled from resisting that curse resisting her command to kill me. He didn’t look at me. His gaze was locked on Yomi like one might stare at a ghost they once feared in childhoo
