Days had passed since Nicole's harrowing victory over Chantelle's spirit, but the fragile peace she thought she'd won began to unravel with cruel subtlety.
It started with a cough—harsh, rattling, unexpected. She barely made it to the stone sink before thick, blackened blood spilled from her lips, pooling cold and sticky beneath her trembling hands.
Nicole's chest heaved, every breath a battle. Her skin, once glowing with the gold and obsidian light of balance, now felt tight and constricting, as if something unseen was coiling within her veins, tightening like a noose.
With a shaky hand, she wiped the dark fluid from her lips and forced herself to meet her own gaze in the cracked mirror above the basin.
Her eyes—her beautiful mismatched eyes—flickered violently. One moment they shone with fierce golden light, warm and alive. The next, they darkened to a deep, endless black, shadow swallowing flame.
