The jungle, which had been roaring a moment ago with the sound of those twisted predators, had now fallen into a reverent silence. The monsters did not understand fear the way humans did, but they understood dominance.
They understood when something had stepped into their territory that did not belong beneath them.
Slowly, Spectra lifted one hand.
At first it looked like her red smoke, curling at her shoulders and spreading outward in a slow bloom. Then the shapes began to resolve. Limbs. Claws. Horns. Wings folded tight against hunched silhouettes.
One by one, her children came forward from the smoke as though they were being called from a private sanctuary no one else had been allowed to see.
They poured into the clearing in layered waves, some small and quick, others broad-shouldered and predatory, all of them moving with the coordination of creatures that shared one will.
