SCARLETT
The mountains groaned as if the world itself had woken angry.
Silver ash swirled in the storm-light, coating our hair and shoulders like frozen sparks. My triune mark beat against my ribs three heartbeats in one body until it hurt to breathe.
Kael stepped closer, a wall of fire against the night. “We leave. Now.”
“Leave?” Darius’s storm-lit eyes cut toward him. “The Rift will hunt her wherever we run.”
Lucien said nothing. Shadows twined around his boots like restless wolves.
The thunder rolled again, shaking the ground underfoot. A single thought pulsed through my mind, not my own: Choose before the moon bleeds.
We retreated to a narrow canyon where black rock formed a half-circle of natural walls. Kael lit a ring of flames that flickered without smoke; Darius wove lightn
