[Emma's POV]
The silence in the room was a physical presence, a suffocating blanket woven from the threads of betrayal and my own impending death sentence. The brothers were statues frozen in the aftermath, the air still vibrating with Maddox’s venomous accusation. I huddled on the edge of the bed, the Elder’s prophetic words—a throne of eternal night or a grave to bury all worlds—echoing in my mind, each syllable a hammer blow to my sanity. I was no longer a person; I was a cataclysm in a sundress.
The panic was a living thing, coiling in my gut, feeding the shadows that slithered around my ankles like affectionate, anxious pets. The pressure inside me, the raw power that had become my terrifying new reality, was no longer a simmering threat. It was a geyser, and the cap was about to bl
