The transformation was accelerating, and Selena could feel every moment of it with crystalline clarity. Her ribs ached as they thickened and hardened, becoming less like human bone and more like the ancient calcified structures that comprised the Gate itself. Her spine felt like a column of ice, each vertebra grinding against the next as marrow spread through them like frost across glass. Even her skull was changing, growing heavier, denser, pressing down on her thoughts with increasing weight.
But worse than the physical changes was what was happening to her mind.
