The forest no longer felt like a place of refuge.
It felt like a threshold.
Aria lay where she had fallen, her body trembling against the cold earth, her breath uneven and shallow. The echo of that moment—the moment he had spoken through her—still rang in her mind like a curse she couldn’t silence.
Her hands curled into the dirt.
“I’m losing…” she whispered hoarsely.
“No,” the Shadow King murmured, his voice smoother now, more present than ever before. “You are becoming.”
“Shut up!” she snapped, forcing herself onto her elbows. Her entire body felt heavier, as though something invisible pressed down on her from all sides.
But it wasn’t just physical.
It was deeper than that.
Something within her was shifting—aligning in ways she could no longer fully control.
“I won’t let you tak
