The air in the cavern was thick and still, heavy with the scent of ozone and cold stone. Lucy knelt on the smooth, dark floor, her head bowed, her silver hair falling around her face like a curtain. For days, or maybe weeks—time had lost all meaning here—Alistair had been pushing her. Not with violence, but with a relentless, crushing pressure, like the ocean depths. He forced her to reach for a power that felt like trying to grasp her own shadow.
"Again," his voice echoed, calm and unmovable. "Deeper. It is not a tool you wield. It is what you are."
Her body trembled with exhaustion. Her usual power, the familiar surge of black flame, was a distant echo. This was something else. This was trying to wake up a part of her own soul that had been sleeping for a lifetime.
