The clearing pulsed with blinding light and a silence so thick it pressed against my ribs like a second skin.
I lay sprawled on the forest floor, my limbs trembling, the grass beneath me scorched in a perfect circle around my body. The glow radiating from my palms had dimmed, but the pain in my core—the ache of something stolen—was worse than anything I’d ever felt before. My breath came in short, broken gasps, each one a whisper of resistance.
Kael hadn’t moved.
He stood where he’d been at the end of Nyra’s chant—frozen, his hands still half-lifted toward me, but his eyes blank. Glazed. Held captive by the Priestess’s will.
And Nyra... Nyra was smiling.
Her long fingers slid from Kael’s chest like silk, her nails glowing faintly with residual magic. "You feel it, don’t you?" she murm
