The corridors are still dark when I burst through them, but my mind is sharper than it has ever been.
Rose’s scream is still ringing in my ears.
There is no hesitation. No time to question.
I’m already moving—barefoot, shirtless, the taste of ash still clinging to my tongue from the nightmare. But the fury inside me isn’t from a memory.
It’s real. It’s alive. And it wants blood.
The walls blur past in streaks of grey stone and gold trim, a dreamlike haze in motion. My breath hisses through clenched teeth, fire already simmering under my skin. The air is thick, wrong—heavy with something more than midnight. The kind of heaviness that settles before a storm… or a m******e.
My body remembers death. My fire remembers what it means to be hunted.
But this time, I’m not the one running.
T
