Kane’s POV

I have always understood power the way most men understand weather.

Not as something you can fight. Not as something you can own. But as a force that responds to balance—or destroys anything foolish enough to pretend it can stand alone.

That is why I am not surprised when the truth settles in my bones faster than it does in theirs.

The chamber still hums from Scarlett’s revelation. The ancestral stone breathes beneath the floor, a low, patient rhythm, like it has all the time ...