Nia ran.
She didn't think. She didn't plan. She bolted. The guards shouted after her, boots hammering stone, curses tearing through the storm.
She cut left, then right, weaving into alleys where only rats and gutter boys dared crawl. The tube pulsed hotter with every stride. Her breath burned, her soaked tunic clung to her skin, and still she ran.
"Stop the girl!"
A barrel overturned under her foot; she stumbled, caught herself, and sprinted harder. The tube yanked her forward, tugging like it had a will of its own. She hated that it worked.
When she finally collapsed against the damp wall of an abandoned shrine, her chest heaved like a bellows. She dropped the tube into her lap and pressed trembling fingers against the wax. It burned like a fever.
"Spirits take me," she whispered. "What are you?"
The whisper returned, curling inside her skull.
Yours. If you let me be.
Her hand trembled. She could keep running, yes. But the guards would find her. They always did. And this — whatever this was — had already marked her.
Nia grit her teeth. "Fine."
She tore the seal.
The world ruptured.
A scream ripped from her throat as fire and smoke poured out of the tube, twisting upward into a colossal serpent that coiled around her body. Scales shimmered like molten gold, eyes burned green, fangs dripped smoke. Its hiss rattled the bones of the shrine.
She clutched her arm as pain branded her skin, a serpent-shaped sigil glowing and alive, winding from her wrist to her shoulder. The scroll itself disintegrated into ash, its pieces carried into the storm.
Then came the voice — not in her ear, not around her, but inside her head.
You opened me. Now you are mine.
Nia staggered back, chest heaving. The serpent's coils dissolved into light, sinking into her skin, leaving only the mark glowing like an ember. Her hands shook. Her breath stuttered.
Boots clattered at the alley's mouth. The guards.
They froze when they saw her.
Nia turned. Her eyes burned emerald. Wisps of smoke curled from her fingertips. The mark blazed bright, alive, hungry.
The serpent's voice hissed within her mind.
Strike.
Her lips parted, and she realized with a shock that she wanted to obey.
The guards stumbled back, terror etched across their faces. For the first time in her life, Nia was not prey.
She was the storm