Chapter 184

*Elora*

It was still dark when I woke, but not with sleep in my bones. I was trembling. Not from cold, not from pain—from knowing. A knowing that I couldn’t name or reason with, only feel like a pressure behind my eyes and beneath my ribs, like something alive inside me was beginning to stretch. Like it had waited long enough.

The air around me thrummed. Not in a physical way—there was no sound, n