Tyla’s POV
The moment Arthur vanished through the war room doors with his generals, the palace felt wrong. Too still. Too quiet. Too aware of me.
I stood in the corridor, trying to calm the faint, shimmering tremors beneath my skin. The glow had settled, but the scars it carved into the air around me hadn’t. Every guard I passed tried to look composed, but their eyes darted to me like I was a flickering torch in a dark room—beautiful, dangerous, unpredictable.
Maybe I was.
The moon mark on my collarbone throbbed in slow, deliberate pulses, each one syncing with my heartbeat like it was claiming me again and again.
Lucas came up behind me. “You should rest.”
I turned slightly. “Resting doesn’t stop a war.”
“No,” he admitted, “but collapsing in the middle of one doesn’t help either.”
