The skies were silent the night it arrived.
No thunder. No wind.
Just silence.
And then a sound of a fracture. Not like stone or ice, but like the world itself cracking in protest. Somewhere, deep in the marrow of the land, something ancient stirred. Not chaos. Not rage.
Order.
Unyielding. Inescapable.
The Lawbringer had come.
Aria stood on the balcony of the Flame Hall, arms crossed as she stared out into the distant mountains. She couldn’t sleep. Not after what she saw in the ritual. That tree, the fire, the voice that echoed not in her ears but her bones.
She wasn’t just changing.
She was becoming something the world feared.
Her mother’s voice reached her from behind.
“Still awake?”
Aria didn’t turn. “The stars are wrong tonight.”
Elizabeth stepped beside her, brushing a st
