SAGE
Darius knocked at my mind like someone afraid to break glass.
I felt him before I answered. The brush of his presence, layered with urgency. I opened the door to him slowly, letting him in, and in the same breath, I reached outward—touching his thoughts, his awareness, the thread that linked him to Adam.
And I knew. He was with Adam.
Adam had felt my distress. Adam had come for me.
The knowledge warmed me. A tear burned at the corner of my eye. I refused to let it fall.
Not now. Not here.
Not in front of people who had driven a wooden stake into my body with surgical precision because they already knew what I was—half Ancient—and exactly how to destabilize me.
They had planned this. And they had been right.
The stake pulsed beneath my ribs, humming with dark enchantments that scrambled my magic, turning my power into static instead of flame.
Strength bled out of me in slow, humiliating increments. Every breath felt thinner than the last.
