Chapter 7

The first time I feel it, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, counting the cracks in the obsidian floor so I don’t start screaming. Something in my chest… shifts. It’s not the usual tug of the bond—no phantom hand at my wrist, no cold thread pulling me toward the throne room. This is a sharp, foreign spike, like someone took a memory of my heart and twisted it from the outside. I suck in a breath. “What the hell was that?” The chamber is quiet except for the distant murmur of...