The ground didn’t stop shaking.
It pulsed like a heartbeat under Ironridge, slow and heavy and wrong. Each tremor made the cracked stone under my boots shift, made the air taste like copper and old ash.
“Fall back!” Darius roared, hauling me and Elias away from the edge. His arm was iron around my waist, solid and hot even through the chaos. I felt him shift under my hand, bone and muscle realigning, half wolf, half man, ready to run.
Too late.
A crack split the courtyard, racing toward the Citadel doors like jagged lightning. Blood from the fight seeped into it, and the red light flared brighter, hotter, like something under the earth had just opened an eye.
The air turned thick. Metallic. Like old blood and old magic mixed together.
Soldiers stumbled. My legion broke formatio
