SCARLETT
The wind off the northern peaks carried a new sound low, distant, like a drumbeat beneath the snow. It thrummed through my bones, matching the pulse of the crescent mark on my shoulder. Dawn’s weak light spilled across the mountains, but the shadows felt thicker than night.
Kael kept watch at the tree line, every muscle coiled, his amber eyes reflecting the dying embers of his fire. Darius knelt a few feet away, tracing the scorched ground with calloused fingers, sparks of residual lightning flickering at his knuckles. Lucien leaned against a frost-blackened pine, unreadable as ever, the last curls of his shadow magic sliding back beneath his skin.
I stood in the center of the clearing where the Devourer had fallen, snow still hissing where Kael’s flames had scorched it.
