Chapter 6. New Power Awakens

The lodge was asleep.

Every breath inside it had settled into rhythm except hers. Neriah sat on the edge of the cot, listening to the faint creak of beams, the whisper of the wind crawling through the eaves. The mark on her wrist pulsed again—slow, deliberate, like a second pulse mocking the first.

Outside, something called her. A pull.

She rose without sound, slipped the coat Kalen had given her across her shoulders, and stepped into the cold.

The night was wrong. Too still. The clouds had thinned to gauze, letting the moon spill unhindered over the valley. Its light wasn’t silver anymore. It was pink, then crimson, deepening with every breath she took. A blood‑moon. Weeks too early.

Her throat went dry. The last time she’d seen a moon that color, she had died beneath it.

She started walking. The camp faded behind her. The forest opened—silent corridors of pine and mist. Her bare feet whispered against frost‑slick leaves. The air smelled of iron.