Elara POV
The black handprint didn't move.
It stayed on the glass like it was waiting for the window to breathe. Thin cracks spread from its edges — slow, careful lines — almost gentle, like fingers dragging over frost.
But gentle didn't make it safe.
The room held its breath.
I held mine too.
The seventeenth mark pulsed again — a deep, low throb that didn't feel like mine at all. It felt older. Hungrier. Like something inside my skin was waking up in answer to the thing outside the window.
Kaelen moved first.
He stepped between me and the glass, blade angled down, shoulders squared the way wolves do when they sense something too big to fight.
Theron stepped to my other side, power humming around his hands — cold, controlled, but sharp enough to cut the room in half.
Mira didn't move toward the threat.
She moved toward me.
Her hand found my wrist like she could hold the pulse down if she pressed hard enough.
"Elara," she whispered, "don't look at it."
