The fortress slept, but Selina didn’t.
The night was thick with tension, the kind that crawled across the skin like spider-silk and whispered that something wasn’t right. She sat on the edge of the bed in Zane’s chamber, watching his chest rise and fall in uneven rhythm.
He was alive—but different.
Since the ritual, there had been no screaming, no violent spasms like before. But there was still something wrong. Something beneath the surface.
Selina felt it through the bond.
His pain.
His restlessness.
His fear.
She brushed the hair from his forehead and leaned close. “I’m here,” she whispered, not knowing if he could hear her.
Outside, the fortress walls creaked in the wind. The fires had died low. The healers had retreated.
And then—
The shadows moved.
Selina’s hand went insti
