Caleb gasped, his boots scraping against the earth as Rowan's hand clamped tight around his throat. But it wasn't Rowan's voice that followed—it was something darker, ancient, hollowed by centuries of slumber and suffering.
"One will fall," the Forgotten One rasped through Rowan's lips, its voice layered with whispers. "Choose, daughter of the moon… or I will."
"Let him go!" Aria's voice cracked like a whip, but her limbs trembled. The air around them shimmered with raw magic—hers and something far older. She couldn't move. Her heart thundered in her chest, not just from fear but from the pulse of the burning crescent mark over it.
Solene stepped forward, hands raised, voice calm. "You don't want to do this."
The black eyes turned toward her. "You think your light matters, starborn? Your words are threads I can snap."
Rowan's arm trembled. A flicker of pain—his pain—glimpsed beneath the surface of the possessed eyes.
