(Daciana POV)
Gonzalo fell hard to his knees, pulling both guards down with him as the black feather over his heart split open like a dark eye.
Blood spread across his armor, but it did not fall naturally; it rose upward in thin lines toward the empty moon.
Conri shouted his name, and the pain in that single word almost made me forgive the old friendship he was not ready to bury.
I reached Gonzalo before the guards could drag him farther, dropping to my knees in the dirt despite every warning shouted behind me.
“Do not touch the mark,” Otsana cried, but I had already learned that fear often arrived too late to be useful.
I did not touch the mark.
I touched Gonzalo’s wrist.
His skin was burning cold, and his pulse moved in broken beats that matched the unborn child’s echo still haun
