What Rises

Sophia's POV

The power arrived at dawn.

I had not called it. I had not done the deliberate, practiced summoning that Maren had taught me in the cellar room, the careful breathing and the conscious opening that I had developed over seven days of preparation before the full moon. This was different. This was the power calling itself, rising from the deepest place in this body with the specific, purposeful urgency of something that has been patient for long enough and has decided that ...