The night after the Bloodhound’s defeat did not end in victory songs. It ended in silence.
Lena sat hunched on the scorched ground, her breath shallow, her bones vibrating as though the beast’s roar still echoed inside her chest. The ash clung to her skin, streaked by blood — not all of it hers — and when she looked at her trembling hands, she barely recognized them. They were not the hands of the girl who had once lived in shadows. These were the hands of someone who had killed, survived, and carried death inside her.
The mark beneath her skin pulsed faintly, a living ember. She pressed her palm against it, but the heat did not fade. It throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat, and sometimes it whispered. Sometimes, in the ringing silence of the aftermath, she swore she heard voices — the
