The blood moon rose.

I felt it before I saw it—like a blade sliding slow and merciless beneath my skin, splitting me open from the inside. Heat, sharp and unrelenting, spread through my chest until I could hardly breathe. My lungs dragged at the air, my ribs aching with every inhale, every exhale.

Then it began.

The first wave.

A violent shudder ripped through me, throwing my body forward against the chains. They clattered, groaned, the iron biting into my wrists as if to remind me—monster, prisoner, cursed.

I roared, a raw sound, tearing from my throat until it scraped my lungs raw. My head snapped back, veins bulging as...