The transition from the earthly Terran Sovereign to the Primal Sovereign was not a mere change of shape; it was the dissolution of the boundary between the soul and the cosmos.
I was no longer Elara, the girl who had been sold for a handful of credits. I was no longer the Empress of a broken North. As I leaped into the sky, my form expanding into a snow-white beast of starlight and nebula-fire, I felt the gravity of the planet let go. The atmosphere of the North, usually so heavy with the scent of pine, salt, and the lingering rot of the Void, became a transparent veil. My four eyes—now merged into a singular pair of vast, swirling galaxies—saw the world as a tapestry of vibrating threads. I saw the golden thread of Lucien's solar line, the obsidian-shadow thread of Kaelen's mate-bond, and the sturdy, unpretentious bronze thread of Leo's humanity.
But above me, blocking out the stars, was the Matriarch.
