The silver dome sang like a choir of knives.
It wasn’t music. It was law woven into wire, humming against bone, testing breath, tugging at every heartbeat inside. Lena felt it under her skin, in her teeth, in her mark. Each note tried to coax her into stillness, to say accept this, accept us, let the cage write you clean.
She clenched her jaw. “No.”
The crowns flared above her, fire and bone bright against the silver. The others inside the dome looked to her—Lark pale but steady, Bran’s knife white-knuckled in his grip; Mireya leaning heavier on her staff, lips already moving in counter-song; two scouts grim-faced, determined.
Outside, Dominic was a wolf pacing, eyes ablaze, fire hammering against the wire though he knew every blow was feeding it. Kael, of course, laughed at the wrong
