The Scar writhed like it had grown a second heartbeat inside me, veins alive with a rhythm not my own. I held Dahlia tighter, but my arm betrayed me—jerking violently, shadow-chains tearing out in wild arcs that nearly split the ground where she lay.
The abyss below hissed again, voice older than the Crown, heavier than the Hunger:
"Shael ultherra… you already are…"
My wolf snarled inside me, hackles raised, claws raking at the bars of my mind. This isn't hunger anymore. The Scar itself has turned. Another hand tugs the leash.
I staggered, fighting to lock my muscles, but every motion felt stolen—as though I were nothing more than the vessel's shadow.
Visions burst behind my eyes, unbidden: titanic chains coiling in the dark, anchoring a form too vast to name, its body buried beneath the world, its silence swallowing stars whole.
The Scar pulsed with a chant not from my lips, not from Dahlia's, but from something else tugging the tether:
