He stepped back through the broken window into the dining room. The Aldridge family was still trembling, peeking out from behind curtains and beneath the table.Adrian pulled out his chair and sat down again. He picked up his fork and looked at the terrified family."The pest is gone," Adrian said calmly. "Let's eat. Dinner’s getting cold."The dining room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only sound was the clink of Adrian’s fork against his plate as he finished his meal quietly. The Aldridge family watched him with wide, trembling eyes.Elena was the first to find her voice, although it was barely a whisper. "So... this is what a normal day looked like in the Maw?" she asked, her hands still trembling as she held her napkin.Adrian didn't even look up. "No. In the Maw, the monsters don't stop to talk. And they don't turn into flies. You’ve seen the polite version today."After a few more minutes of heavy silence, Adrian and Lyra stood up to leave. The tension in the room s

Adrian’s breath hitched. A wave of agony crashed over him. All those years of feeling abandoned, all the nights he spent hating my father for killing my mother, for throwing him away like trash... it had all been a lie. He had been hating a ghost. He had been hating a monster. "Where is he?" Adrian hissed, his voice trembling with a rage so deep it felt like the earth was shaking. "Why did you do it? Why take his life?" The monster in Marcus's skin tilted its head. "Why? Because your family was a perfect nest. Wealth, power, and a son with a spark of something special. I didn't take his life, Adrian. Not yet. I just... borrowed it." "TELL ME THE TRUTH!" Adrian screamed. He lunged forward, his fist glowing with a sun-shattering purple light. The fight began with an explosion that blew out every window in the foyer. The shapeshifter was fast, even faster than the one in the garden. He shifted his arms into heavy, obsidian clubs, swinging them with enough force to level a building. A

Driven by a sudden, sharp purpose, Sophia headed deep into the west wing of the house, toward the private wing of her late grandfather, Rowan. The door was heavy and locked, but she found the key hidden in the base of a nearby bust. The room smelled of old paper and pipe tobacco.She began to tear through the desk, tossing aside ledgers and business documents. Finally, her hand brushed a hidden lever beneath the mahogany surface. A secret drawer clicked open. Inside sat a leather-bound journal, its cover worn and dusty, and a rolled-up piece of parchment.She unrolled the parchment and gasped. It was a map of Europe, but not one she recognized from school. It was covered in strange, glowing runes. Four pulsing marks sat on the map, glowing with a soft, rhythmic light: The Eye of the North, The Heart of the Forest, The Breath of the Peak, and The Soul of the Deep.Sophia opened the journal. Her eyes widened as she read her grandfather’s hurried script.“The world thinks the Aldridge fa

She began to climb. She leaped from one jagged ledge to another, her fingers gripping the icy stone until they bled. She was halfway down when a sound chilled her blood—a wet, sloshing noise that didn't come from the waves.A creature pulled itself out of the shadows. It was a Stalker scout, a twisted thing made of rotting kelp and black, oily shadows. It hissed, it had many yellow eyes and they all locked onto her.Sophia panicked. She reached for the knife Adrian had given her, but as the creature lunged, she realized she had no idea how to use it. The blade felt clumsy in her shaking hand.The Stalker leaped, its claws raking the air. Sophia scrambled back, sliding down a slick slope of rock. She looked up and saw a massive, jagged pillar hanging directly above the creature’s path."Use your head!" she screamed at herself.As the creature crouched to spring again, Sophia didn't attack the monster. Instead, she threw her body weight against a loose boulder, kicking it with all her m

His eyes were a piercing, earthy brown. "I am Kaelen, the last Grave-Warden of this grove. Many have come for the stone. Most are buried beneath those trees."He didn't draw a weapon, but the ground seemed to tremble slightly as he moved. "You carry the scent of the sea, but the earth is a different master. You think power is something you take. I think you are just another thief.""I'm not a thief!" Sophia shouted. "It belongs to my family!""Family is a word for the dead," Kaelen countered. "I challenge you, Sophia Aldridge. Not to a duel of magic—for you are a child playing with matches—but to a duel of spirit. If you cannot stand against the weight of the wild, you will never hold the Earth."For the next several days, they didn't fight with blades. Kaelen forced her to sit in silence for hours, listening to the growth of the grass. He made her climb the tallest trees without using her hands, forcing her to find the "grip" of the bark.They sat by a small fire one evening, the anc