CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE FRACTURE OF CONTROL
(Mirabel’s POV)
Power doesn’t always explode.
Sometimes—
It whispers first.
The Silence Before Ruin
No one moved.
Not me.
Not Solomon.
Not even the shadows.
The chamber held its breath around us, the pulsing core behind me casting violent crimson light across the stone walls. Every beat of it shook the air harder now—alive in a way it hadn’t been before.
Aware.
And focused on me.
Alaric stared at me like he was seeing something impossible claw its way into existence.
“You’re connected to it,” he said again, quieter this time.
Not disbelief anymore.
Fear.
Solomon forced himself upright beside me, one hand braced against the floor, breathing ragged. Dark marks crawled beneath his skin where the shadows had touched him.
“Mirabel,” h
