Marcus stood at the edge of the cliffside temple, the wind howling through the broken pillars like the ghosts of dragons past. Shattered statues of long-forgotten gods loomed half-buried in ivy and ruin behind him, and the sky above cracked with the distant roar of thunder. His claws gouged deep into the marble as if trying to hold the world together with brute force alone. But it was already coming undone.
He had felt it.
Not heard. Not seen.
Felt.
A sudden, seismic shift in the tether that bound him to her—not like a string pulled tight, but like a cord fraying from the inside, burning away at its own edges.
She was awake.
Rose. His Rose. His flame-heart. The girl whose light had once found him in the dark and called him back from madness, whose very breath had soothed the beast wi
