The courtyard turned into a slaughterhouse in three heartbeats.
Lyra moved first — a blur of ash-flesh and rotting light. She slammed into the nearest warrior, fingers punching through silver-burn armor like it was wet cloth. The man didn’t scream long. His body withered in seconds, skin cracking into dry parchment, eyes sinking into black sockets. Lyra drank him down with a wet, greedy sound that made my stomach twist.
The pre-heat answered with a vicious spike. My empty womb clenched hard, a phantom cramp where the child had once kicked. Heat flooded between my legs, shameful and wrong, turning every breath into a fight against the urge to bite the nearest living thing — Lyra, the guards, or Silas. I tasted my own blood from where I’d bitten my tongue raw.
“Lyra — stop!” I roared, but
