The child didn't want to wait nine months for a world that was already burning.I felt the first kick against my ribs—not a soft flutter of life, but a sharp, rhythmic thud that carried the weight of a heartbeat far too strong for a tiny chest. My stomach tightened, the skin stretching with a visible, silver-white glow that shone through the thin fabric of my tunic. The pregnancy wasn't following the laws of nature; it was feeding on the violet fire still humming in my marrow."Stop," Kael said. He didn't look at me, but I felt his panic through the shared ledger. It was a cold, jagged spike in my own mind. "Amara, your pulse is hitting one-sixty. The baby is drinking you.""I'm fine," I lied, my voice sounding like I’d swallowed a handful of dry needles.I leaned against a frost-covered oak, my fingers digging into the bark. The living map in my palm was burning, the red dot in the Silver Ridge nursery pulsing with an urgent, screaming frequency. We were still five miles from the peri
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