The light that streamed through the collapsing chamber was a lie.
Just as Selena's consciousness began to slip away, just as the darkness seemed ready to claim her at last, she felt something cold and viscous wrap around her wrist. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw with horror that the stone beneath them was no longer simply crumbling—it was liquefying, transforming into something organic and wrong.
Marrow.
The word came to her unbidden, accompanied by a flash of terrible understanding. This was the source, the primordial substance from which the crown had drawn its power, from which the entire system had been built. While the crown had been the symbol, the seat of authority, the marrow was the foundation—the living essence of domination itself, older than civilization, perhaps older than humanity.
And it was trying to survive.
