The darkness didn't fade into a warm, quiet bedroom. It shattered.
My eyes flew open with a sharp, ragged gasp, but I wasn't looking at the silk canopy of our palace chambers. I was sitting straight up, my back pressed hard against a cold, jagged rock. The air was thick, suffocatingly hot, and stank heavily of iron, smoke, and violent death.
Right in front of me, a literal blood war was raging.
The courtyard was gone, replaced by a desolated, ruined wasteland of shattered stone and scorched earth. In the absolute center of the carnage stood Draven. He wasn't wearing a shirt—only his low-slung black trousers, which were already splattered with fresh, glistening crimson. His broad back and muscular chest were on full display, but they were no longer entirely human. Massive, pitch-black obsidian scales crawled completely up both of his arms, extending over his shoulders and tracing lethal patterns down his spine.
He was tearing them down.
