The forest did not forget what happened in the clearing. Neither did the earth. For three nights after the surge, the truce line pulsed erratically beneath Elena’s feet, flaring without warning and dimming just as suddenly. She felt it in her sleep — flashes of silver light behind her eyelids, whispers beneath her skin, the sensation of something ancient turning its gaze fully toward her at last. Power was no longer something she reached for. It reached for her.
By the fourth night, the consequences arrived.
Elena stood at the edge of the property just past dusk, the sky bruised purple and red as the sun disappeared. The air felt wrong — too tight, too compressed, like a storm about to split the horizon. Rowan paced near the treeline, tension vibrating in every line of his body. Lucien s
