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The Hollow warps beneath my feet as I move. It’s alive with residue—echoes of spells, power still humming in the bones of the earth, fractured sigils bleeding magic across the ground like veins. Every stride forward draws more heat to the runes scrawled over my arms, my chest. My breath comes ragged, not from exhaustion but anticipation. My rage isn’t just awake—it’sstarving.

And there she is.

Branwen stands like she’s rooted to the very heart of the Hollow, her hands folded calmly in front of her, her power swirling in quiet arcs of gold and rot around her frame. There’s nothing frantic in her posture. No urgency in her gaze. Just...satisfaction.

She’s not watching the chaos anymore.

She’s watching Orin.

His body is braced, his shoulders drawn taut, his magic trembling under the weight of her hold. Whatever she’s done to him, it’s pulling him apart from the inside. And yet he stands. Silent. Unmoving. Sage-like in his pain. If it were anyone else, they’d be on their knees.

But she’s too focused on him to notice me—exactly like Lucien said.

It’s my opening.

I dig in andrun, every pulse of power coiling into my fists. I don't plan to knock her down. I plan to rip her apart. Take her apart withrage—with the fury she’s bred in all of us and fed like it belongs to her. My wrath is not Lucien’s clever blade. It’s not Orin’s quiet storm. It’s wildfire, and I mean to burn her in it.

Ten feet away, her head tilts.

Her lips curl into a smile like a secret she never told me.

And everything goes wrong.

It hits me first like a cold snap in my brain—a voice, not spoken aloud, but pressed into my bones. Lucien. I know that weight. Thatcommand. He doesn’t need words to make a body betray itself. His will slides in like silk anddrags.

“Down.”

My knees lock. My steps stutter.

It’s not enough to stop me. Not completely.

But Ifeelit. That hesitation—foreign, forced—gripping my spine like a leash.

Before I can shake it off, another force collides with me. Not blunt. Not visible. Just a hand—Orin’s. Ghost-light fingers brushing against my arm as he steps out of Branwen’s shadow.

And the second he touches me, it’s like something inside me getshollowed out. The burn of my magic evaporates in slow, dragging waves. Not stolen. Not consumed.

Devoured.

Orin’s eyes meet mine, and there’s sorrow in them. Real sorrow. But his mouth doesn’t open. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’tapologize. He justtakes. My rage—the thing that’s defined me, driven me,savedme—seeps out of me through his grip like blood through a cracked vessel.

I snarl and swing for him out of instinct. But it’s weak. Sloppy. The kind of hit I’d never throw if I were myself. And it misses. Of course it misses.

Because I’m not myself anymore. Between Lucien’s voice and Orin’s touch, I’ve beenundone.

And Branwen doesn’t lift a finger. She just turns her back. Dismisses me. Like I was never a threat. Like I was never worth the effort. The smile she leaves behind is worse than a blade. Because it tells me sheplannedfor this.

Lucien and Orin have me boxed in. Not with brute force—though they could. Not with words—though Lucien’s are always blades waiting for the right vein. It’s their presence that suffocates, sharp and unrelenting, pulling at my magic until I can barely remember what it feels like to rage without something leeching it from my bones. Lucien stands a few paces off, spine straight, hands loose at his sides, but every inch of him wired with purpose. He doesn’t look at me like a brother. He looks at me like a problem. And Orin, fucking Orin, is the quiet executioner—shoulders calm, expression unreadable, but his power already threading through the seams of mine, feeding on it slow and patient like he's done this a thousand times before.

They think they’ve neutralized me. And maybe they have.

But that’s not the point anymore.

Because their eyes are on me, and that means they’re not onthem.

Out in the swirling ruin of the Hollow, I can feel Silas’s magic shift like a change in pressure. It flits around the edges of this war like a drunk shadow, untethered and erratic, butunderneath the chaos is precision—targeted interference, unpredictable enough that even Branwen’s cursed foresight can’t trace him. And Elias, gods help him, is right there too. Not subtle. Not graceful. But he’smoving, and that’s what matters. They’re working in tandem, even if they’d both swear they’re not. Silas, the storm. Elias, the spark.

Maybe this is what Lucien wanted from the beginning. To make Branwen think the real threat is the one snarling in the center of the battlefield, ready to tear her throat out. And while she watches me, while she’s focused on containing my fire, the others slip through the cracks. They can get close enough to matter. Close enough to end her.