Rissa’s POV

The shadow was inches from me when I stopped running from myself.

Cold stretched toward my face, hollow eyes widening, absence opening like a mouth ready to swallow everything I was.

I did not step back.

I stepped forward.

“I open,” I said.

The words were not loud.

But the world heard them.

Something inside me unlocked.

Not gently.

Not slowly.

It tore through me like a dam breaking.

Light exploded outward from my chest, silver and fierce, ripping through the ...