Azura's POV
He got closer to the boys and I saw it.
I did not understand how I was seeing it. It was not something on the surface, not something the eye was supposed to catch. But it was there. Inside each of them.
A blue pearl sitting deep inside their bodies, glowing faintly, pulsing in a slow rhythm that had nothing to do with a heartbeat. Thick. Wrong. The way a splinter is wrong inside a wound, something that does not belong, the body has quietly been building itself around it.
Torin was looking at exactly the same spot I was looking at.
He stopped in front of Leo. Said something low and quiet. I was not close enough to catch the words.
The blue pearl inside Leo started to shake.
Small at first. A vibration, fast and tight. Then bigger. Then bigger still. And then it just came apart from the inside, like something that had been held together by pressure for too long and finally had nothing left to hold itself with.
Torin raised his hand in front of Leo's mouth.
