Evelina's POV
My blood hits the seal.
For one heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then the world explodes.
The ground doesn't just shake—it screams. A sound like a thousand voices crying out all at once tears through the air. I try to crawl backward, but the stone beneath me cracks open like an egg.
Black fire shoots up from the seal. Not hot fire. Cold fire. The kind that burns in reverse, sucking warmth instead of giving it.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but watch as the silver symbols on the seal start glowing so bright they hurt my eyes.
"No, no, no—" I press my bleeding hand against my chest, trying to stop what I've started. "I didn't mean to—it was an accident—"
But the seal doesn't care about accidents.
More cracks spread outward from where my blood landed. Each crack glows with that terrible black fire. The ruins around me start to shake apart. Stone columns that have stood for three hundred years crumble like sand.
