Selene’s POV

I counted them.

Not because I wanted to, and certainly not because counting would make them disappear, but because my mind needed something to hold on to while my heart struggled to understand what I was seeing.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The cracks were everywhere.

Thin red lines split the ground like wounds that refused to heal, stretching across the streets, climbing the walls, cutting through courtyards and gardens, and appearing in places I had walked through countless times.

Some were barely wide enough to notice.

Others pulsed with a dull crimson light, as though something beneath the earth was breathing.

By sunrise, I had counted one hundred...