The shadow had been walking inside her steps for hours—perhaps longer—before it chose to step out.
It didn't peel away so much as slip sideways, a liquid subtraction of light.
When it faced her, Codexia saw that its face was her own, only rewritten in a hand that was not hers: features slightly mispunctuated, eyes holding words she'd never written. It regarded her with the precision of a reader who has already found the error and intends to circle it in red.
It moved first.
Not toward her, but into her.
The approach was not a stride, but a sentence curling into her margins. She felt it graze her skin like a stylus, leaving phantom lines that ached to be completed. Her body shivered—not from cold, but from the sudden awareness of being drafted.
Her breath quickened.
The Codex inside her—the living one that had melted into her pores in the coronation—stirred with interest. Its hunger was not hers, and yet she felt it rising through her ribs, urging her to yield.
