Sophia
The ward stones ring the eastern perimeter like broken teeth, each one pulsing with the remnants of yesterday's attack. I kneel beside the first one—granite carved with symbols that make my eyes ache if I look too long—and press both palms against its rough surface. The Luna magic rises without me calling it, silver light spreading from my hands into the stone like water soaking through fabric.
"Feel how it drinks?" Maelis crouches beside me, her silver eyes tracking the power flow. "The stone is thirsty. Corruption leaves wounds that need feeding."
Behind us, the omegas wait in a semicircle—fourteen women ranging from Tilly, barely fourteen herself and skinny as a fence post, to Ramona the laundress who's got thirty-eight years of hard living carved into her weathered face. T
