They were already too late.
Amalia felt it the instant her boots struck the outer corridor—the sharp pressure change, the pull low in her spine that meant magic had broken containment, not sealed. Not guided.
Called.
Dorian.
They reached his chamber at a run. The window stood open, curtains snapping violently as rain tore inside. His scent—usually pine and ink—was shredded thin and frantic, dragged into the storm like something inside him had fled first. As the storm surged, Amalia caught a flicker of movement in the air above Dorian’s bed—rain twisting, wind bending as if it had struck glass.
Her reflection stared back at her.
Not the woman she had been.
Her hair streamed dark and wild around her face, eyes burning that obsidian gray—the ridge color. Power clung to her skin, warpin
