Page 212

“That thing is fucking creepy,” Silas mutters, flipping off the pillar like it just insulted his mother.
The gesture is pure Silas, deflection wrapped in humor, but his posture is tighter now, jaw set, shoulders stiff beneath the lazy roll of his sleeves. He’s not joking. Not really. That flicker of pulse from the stone didn’t just startle him, it rattled him.
It rattled all of us. Because the stone shouldn’t have responded. Not to us. Not anymore.
But it did.
“You think it’s creepy now?” Elias says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Wait until it starts talking. Or singing. Maybe we’ll get a haunted lullaby with our trauma.”
Silas snorts but doesn’t look away from the pillar. His fingers twitch like he wants to touch it again just to be sure it won’t bite. I see the moment hesitation gives way to arrogance, he takes a step closer.
“Do not touch it again,” I say, the command slipping out instinctively.
My Dominion hums beneath the words, low and cold.
He freezes, halfway through raising a hand.
Elias whistles. “You’re so hot when you bark orders.”
I ignore him.
Orin, ever the ghost of old wisdom, watches from beside me, arms folded, head tilted slightly toward the pillar. “It’s awakening,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. “Responding to movement. Memory. The bindings here were never entirely erased. They were only... softened.”
Silas mutters under his breath. “Like a bad curse with a soft edge.”
“No such thing,” Orin says quietly. “A curse is a curse. So is a bond.”
I look between them, between the stone that was our prison, and the ones I once called enemies before Luna cracked us open like hollowed bones.
“She’s testing the boundaries,” I say, turning back to the pillar. “Branwen wants us to come to her. She wants to lure us through it. Make us desperate.”
“She’s succeeding,” Elias replies, unusually subdued.
Silas crosses his arms, brow drawn. “So what’s the plan? Wait until we’re bleeding from our bond marks and hope we get an invite?”
I don’t answer right away.
Because the truth is, I don’t have a plan.
Branwen’s alive. She’s using magic no one understands. And worst of all, she’s two moves ahead of us again.
But I won’t say that.
Not out loud.
Instead, I look at the stone. Let it burn into my vision like it holds the map I haven’t found yet.
“She built the cage,” I say slowly. “But she’s not the only one who can pick the lock.”
The others drift back toward the house, their laughter quieter now, dulled by whatever the pillar stirred in their bones. But I stay behind. The stone looms in front of me, old magic and older scars and for a moment, I forget I’m not still wearing the collar she placed on me.
Branwen.
She was strategic, poised, and devastatingly intelligent. She didn’t seduce us with sweetness. She used purpose. Promised order in the chaos of our power. Said she could teach us how to wield it without unraveling. She spoke the language of control, of structure. I mistook it for stability.
But power doesn’t stay clean for long. And it never stays shared.
At first, she was… contained. Bound to me, she was cautious, controlled, and even. The bond enhanced her abilities, yes, but it also gave her access to my Dominion. And she wielded it with terrifying grace. Never too much. Never obviously. Just enough to suggest. To nudge. Until everyone was moving the way she wanted, and no one questioned why.