Chapter Eighteen: When the Sky Breaks
The world held its breath.
Not metaphorically.
Not poetically.
Literally.
Every living thing in the clearing, wolves mid-lunge, bullets suspended in air, flames frozen in their upward curl, hung in perfect, impossible stillness.
Time itself had been seized.
And at the center of it, Cassandra stood.
*****
Cassandra
She could feel it.
Everything.
Every heartbeat paused mid-pulse.
Every breath waiting to be completed.
Every life balanced on a razor’s edge.
It wasn’t power in the way she had imagined power.
It wasn’t strength.
It was awareness.
A terrifying, infinite awareness.
“I didn’t know it would feel like this…” she whispered.
Her voice didn’t echo.
It didn’t travel.
It simply existed.
Jay lay cradled against her chest, unmovin
