The moment the cross carved through her body, Eleanor's scream never came. Her mouth opened, but the agony was too vast and raw, for sound. It was pain that tore past flesh and into the soul. And in that sliver of dying consciousness, as blood spilled from her lips, something deeper cracked.
The bloodline suppression had done something.
Because the grip her master had on her, the twisted thing buried inside her, had loosened. And the shadow clinging to her thoughts, always whispering, always steering, suddenly recoiled.
And what filled the void wasn't peace. It was clarity.
Clarity enough to feel everything.
Meanwhile her master's thoughts trembled. Shocked didn't cover how they really felt. Because when Elizabeth unleashed Dragon Might, something ancient stirred. Only pure-blood dragons could wield such authority, such overwhelming presence. For a hybrid to awaken it?
It was Impossible.
But it was real.
