Arabella finally stirred. Shadow coiled like smoke with a flick of her wrist, winding around the creature’s wound. For a moment, the thing wavered, staggering. I almost thought she was helping—until I realized the truth.
She wasn’t binding it. She was feeding it.
The shadows sank into its molten skin, and the glow grew brighter, fiercer, until its roar rattled stones from the walls and.
“Vivian—she’s making it worse!” Wren’s voice cuts through the chaos as he stumbles back to my side.
My chest tightened, rage and fear colliding in one impossible decision. Fight the monster… or fight Arabella.
And in that moment, I realized something far more dangerous: maybe I’d have to do both.
The creature roared, its molten form pulsing with renewed rage as Arabella’s shadows flow through its fiss
