SAPHRA’S POVBy the time I reach his study doors, my pulse is still racing, my thoughts moving fast, every instinct screaming the same thing....We are out of time.I knock once.Hard.There’s a pause on the other side.Then,“Enter.”His voice is controlled but I hear the strain. I push the door open and step inside, closing it firmly behind me.Lucien is standing near his desk, one hand braced against its edge like he was earlier against the wall. He looks up as I enter, his expression guarded but there’s something else beneath it now.Something unsettled.“You said this was urgent,” he says.“It is.”I don’t move further into the room immediately. I just… look at him. And the moment I do my breath catches.There, clear as daylight.Black veins.They spider out from his chest, branching across his skin beneath his shirt like cracks spreading through glass. They pulse faintly, alive with something dark, something wrong, radiating outward from his heart.For a second, I can’t move beca
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