The smoke curling from the ropes around Lily's wrists sharpened into something more immediate heat, real and building, spreading up her arms like fire finally catching after too long smoldering. She gasped as the sensation intensified, that same electric current she'd felt twice before now roaring through her entire body instead of flickering weakly at the edges, and this time it didn't hesitate or falter.
The ropes snapped.
Lily stumbled forward, free for the first time since she'd woken bound to the post, and stared down at her own hands in disbelief, watching faint silver light trace beneath her skin in patterns that mirrored the mark still visible on her wrist. Whatever dormant thing lived inside her, whatever her father had carried and passed down without ever explaining, it had fin
