The golden-crimson flames had barely settled into Selena's new form when she felt it—a wrongness spreading across the world like infection through a wound. Through the eternal flame that now burned at her core, through the Phoenix Pact that connected her to the fundamental struggle between freedom and tyranny, she sensed something stirring in the places they thought had been cleansed.
Decree's remnants. The final echoes of the system they had destroyed, gathering themselves for one last attempt at resurrection.
It wasn't the marrow this time, or the crown, or the Riftborn King's curse. Those had been specific manifestations, particular incarnations of dominion. What she felt now was more insidious—it was decree itself, the fundamental concept that some voices carried inherent authority, that some words were law simply because of who spoke them, that obedience was a virtue rather than a choice.
And it was everywhere.
