Chapter 4

Isabelle' s screams from the capital grew more frantic, more demanding.

Thorne, now a man possessed, returned to Elara.

She was a shell, her eyes reflecting the massacre she had witnessed.

"Isabelle is dying," he hissed, his breath hot on Elara' s face. "My son is dying. You have the Spirit. It' s in you. The child must have passed it to you."

His logic was twisted, born of desperation and Isabelle' s constant manipulation.

He dragged a terrified surgeon into the bloodstained clearing.

"Cut it out of her," Thorne ordered, pointing to Elara' s chest. "Extract the Hearthstone Spirit."

The surgeon trembled, his eyes wide with fear. "Governor, I... I can' t..."

"You will," Thorne roared, pressing a gun to the surgeon' s temple.

Elara looked at Thorne, a flicker of her old self in her eyes.

"You fool," she whispered. "You already have a part of my Spirit. I gave it to you, to save your life."

He ignored her.

The surgeon, hands shaking, approached Elara with a scalpel.

Elara closed her eyes. She thought of her people, of Willow, of her unborn child.

The pain was sharp, then distant.

She felt her life-essence, the true Hearthstone Spirit, leave her.

Elara, the healer, the last of the Redwood Creek Stewards, died on the desecrated land of her ancestors.

The wind picked up, carrying a scent of ozone and something ancient, something angry.

A storm was gathering, not of rain, but of retribution.