POV: Kael
The mark burned like fire etched into my skin.
At first, I thought it was a scar. A strange one, granted—a black crescent over my heart, carved in a shape I’d never seen before—but still just a wound. But by the second night, when it began to glow through my shirt and pulse with an energy that wasn’t mine, I stopped pretending I didn’t know better.
It wasn’t a scar.
It was a message.
Or maybe a warning.
Either way, it was alive.
⸻
We hadn’t spoken much about the ritual since the Hollow was sealed. Aria was still recovering. Her body had survived the magical backlash, but barely. Her wolf was gone. Her power, fractured. There was a haunted stillness in her eyes now, like the space between lightning and thunder—charged, expectant, waiting for something to fall.
I sat besid
