BLOOD AND VOWS
Emilia’s gun was already drawn, eyes fixed on Jace’s body, waiting for movement, half-hoping he was dead, half-fearing he wasn’t.
And then it came.
The blood didn’t spread. It climbed.
Not from the wound, but from the vault itself. Black veins of liquid rose through the floor, coiling like roots beneath a storm, slithering up the stone and pooling around Jace’s body as if pulled by magnetism. The vault wasn’t just watching anymore. It was responding.
“He wasn’t the target,” Emilia said, voice tight.
“No,” Alessio murmured. “He was the sacrifice.”