The First of Her Kind
Madeline
Azrael didn't say anything else as he just turned, his cloak sweeping out from behind him like thick white smoke before he vanished into the veil of heat and ash. The ground where they lay reacted almost instantly. It groaned beneath the weight of their suffering as ash churned upward in the air like a storm held just at the edge of collapse.
The collar around all their necks pulsed once more. A single bright blue light flashed, which seemed to burn with an unnatural heat. The ground beneath them shuddered. Not from power, not from war. Older. Like the realm itself recoiled at what it had just been forced to witness.
And then… they screamed.
Not all of them—only some. Matthew’s voice broke first, a raw, animal-like howl that barely sounded human anymore
