Lyla’s first breath after the transformation was unlike any she had ever taken.

It wasn’t just air filling her lungs.

It was power.

A raw, humming energy coiled beneath her skin, spreading through her limbs like wildfire.

For a moment, she felt weightless as if her body no longer belonged to her, as if she had become something beyond flesh and blood.

The ground beneath her vibrated, as though the earth itself recognized the change inside her.

And then

She opened her ...