POV: Queen Amethyst Walker Reynolds
The air in the nursery had turned from the sweet scent of birthday lilies to the acrid, choking stench of burning ozone. The threads—those beautiful, delicate strands of purple light that Lyzandra had woven around the hearts of our people—were no longer conduits of love. They had become fuses.
I could see the rot moving. It was a visible, oily blackness creeping up the crystalline lines of the Weave, traveling at impossible speeds from the valley floor toward the heart of the palace. Gretchen wasn't just attacking; she was using my daughter’s innocence as a highway for her malice.
"Jackson, stay with the children!" I screamed over the rising howl of the wind that shouldn't have been able to penetrate the palace stone.
Jackson had already shifted into
