CROWNED BY BLOOD
"They're like us just from the other side of the mirror."
The otherworldly figures bowed again, one of them pressing a crystal of impossible beauty into Seraphina's palm before they stepped backward through the rift. Reality sealed itself with a sound like distant thunder, leaving only the faint scent of ozone and the crystal that sparkled in my daughter's hand like captured starlight.
I could barely draw breath, my mind struggling to process what I had witnessed.
"What in all the realms just happened?" Marcus demanded, appearing beside me with his hand already on his weapon, his soldier's instincts recognizing a threat even when it took incomprehensible forms.