Blood Heir
Every sound drained away as if swallowed by something vast and ancient and the glow under my skin surged.
“No,” I said aloud, panic clawing up my throat. “I didn’t call you.”
The pendant burned—not painfully, but insistently, like a warning pressed into my bones.
Rael’s hand closed around mine. “Lyra, stay with me.”
“I am,” I gasped. “I just—she’s trying to reach me.”
The light thickened, coiling through my veins. Images slammed into me without warning:
A woman crowned in starlight, her face fractured like a reflection in broken water. Wolves kneeling, not in devotion—but fear. Blood soaking into pale stone beneath a sky split by silver fire. And a voice—neither loud nor gentle.