bChapter /bb261 /b

    Aurora’s P.O.V

    Lucas’s voice rose in a low, guttural chant, each word curling in the air like tendrils of dark energy, wrapping themselves around the room. Then Harmona joined him, her voice softer but no less potent. She lifted theder high, and the thick crimson liquid sloshed within it, reflecting the dim light with an ominous sheen. The sight of my own blood swirling in that vessel sent a fresh wave of dread rolling through me, but the real horror was the sun–partially eclipsed, casting long,

    eerie shadows that flickered along the walls like ghosts waiting to pounce.

    A sudden pull tore through me, like invisible fingers digging into my skin, sinking deeper and deeper until I felt something vital being siphoned away. My breath hitched. No, no, no. I fought to hold onto whatever it was being taken from me, but it was slipping too fast, a relentless tide pulling me

    under. My knees trembled. The room tilted and spun, and then-

    Green light exploded around us, unnatural, shimmering like the edges of a nightmare. My pulse thundered in my ears as I saw it–droplets of blood, my blood, our blood, suspended in the air, hanging motionless for the briefest moment before they began to rise. My stomach lurched. They weren’t falling to the ground. They were floating upward, like summoned spirits obeying a call I

    couldn’t hear.

    Lucas and Harmona’s chants intensified, a crescendo of dark intent. The droplets reached the ceiling, and instead of sttering against it, they moved–swirling, aligning in a precise, circr formation, as if drawn by an unseen hand. A pit opened in my stomach. This was wrong. This was beyond anything I had ever witnessed, anything I had ever feared.

    I tried to move, to fight, but my body was weak, my limbs sluggish. My heartbeat mmed against my ribs, panic wing at my throat. What were they doing? What was I losing? My voice came out in a strangled whisper, barely audible against the growing storm of power vibrating through the room.

    “Harmona… stop.”

    She didn’t look at me. Didn’t falter. Didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

    Lucas‘ eyes gleamed in the eerie glow, a twisted smile ying on his lips. “It’s toote, Aurora.”

    The circle of blood above us pulsed, and the world trembled.

    The air in the room was thick, suffocating, but it was the burning on my ear that truly sent a sharp, searing pain through me–the mark carved into my skin felt like it was being set aze all over again. My vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in, and for the first time, true hopelessness settled in my chest. Was this how it ended? Was this how I lost?

    I wanted to scream, to w at my skin, to tear that cursed mark from my body, but I couldn’t move.

    My strength was slipping away like sand through my fingers. I could hear the slow, measured breaths of the one standing before me, the one who had done this to me. They knew. They knew I was breaking, that I was right at the edge.

    And then, just as the void threatened to swallow me whole, a voice–soft, familiar, warm–whispered in my mind.

    “Fight back, Aurora.”

    My breath hitched. My heart stuttered.

    I knew that voice.

    “You are stronger than this. You are mine. And you will not fall.”

    Tears pricked at my eyes. My mother. It was my mother’s voice, clear as day, weaving through my mind like a lifeline pulling me from the abyss.

    My fingers twitched, and I gasped as warmth spread from my chest, down my arms, curling through my fingertips like liquid fire. And then, a glow–soft at first, then growing, brighter and brighter— until the entire room was bathed in golden light.

    I sucked in a shaky breath, my gaze shifting to the pendant around my neck. It pulsed against my skin, heat radiating from it, thrumming in time with my heartbeat. The suffocating weight pressing down on me began to lift, the darkness retreating, and for the first time since this nightmare began, I felt power surge through me.

    My mother…she was with me. And she wanted me to fight back.

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