🔥 Chapter Seventeen: The Void, The Thorn, and the Consummation..Â
​I stood frozen at the junction, the iron knife heavy and useless in my hand, staring at the figure of the High Priestess. Her presence was an anomaly in the magic-starved air of the Iron Peaks; she didn't struggle against the iron's dampening effects she seemed to breathe it, drawing strength from the very medium that should have crippled her.
​"The Void," I whispered, the word thick with dread. The ancient legends spoke of the Shadow Cult's origins not as worshippers of darkness, but as those who sought to draw power from the great magical entropy, the absence of life and light that lay beyond the known magical spectrum.
​"A simple Alpha bond creates life. The Void Claiming creates power," the Priestess stated, her voice resonating with cold authority. "You are not a mate, Ember. You are a battery. And the Thorn is the wire."
