Aria woke with a gasp that tore through the quiet like cloth ripping in two.
For a moment she did not know where she was. The room was dark, lit only by a pale ribbon of moonlight spilling through the narrow window. Her breath came in shallow pulls. Every muscle in her body trembled as if she had run for miles. Sweat clung to her skin, cold and slick, and her heart beat in a wild, uneven rhythm against her ribs.
Then she felt it.
Not pain.
Something else.
Heat.
It spread beneath her skin like liquid light, racing through her veins, pushing outward, searching for release. The poison that had weighed her down for days seemed to recoil from it. She could almost feel the two forces colliding inside her—the dull, choking heaviness of the toxin and the fierce, rising blaze of her Moonfire.
