Page 23

Chapter 22

T he walk to the Runery took us into the older quarters of Everwood, where cobblestones gave way to packed earth and the buildings pressed close together. Twilight had fallen completely now, the last traces of day surrendering to a sky pricked with early stars.

Kazrek walked beside me, his silence heavier than usual. Not angry—just weighted. Like his thoughts had shape, and I could almost feel their edges. His broad shoulders were set in a line that spoke of determination, but there was something guarded in the way he held himself.

"You've been to the Runery before?” I asked.

He nodded once. "A few times. For supplies. Advice."

"What's he like? Sylwen?"

Kazrek considered this, his pace never faltering. "Strange. Not in a dangerous way. More like he's seen things most haven't."

I thought of Selior's cryptic warning— He's already paid the price —and tried to imagine what that might mean.

The deeper we went into this part of town, the more I felt eyes on us—not hostile, just curious. Windows glowed with muted light behind heavy curtains. Doorways stood half-open, voices spilling out in languages I didn't recognize. The air smelled of unfamiliar spices and something sharper—like electricity before a storm.

Finally, we turned down a narrow lane almost hidden between taller buildings, and there it was: the Runery. It seemed to grow from the stone around it, ivy-wrapped and ancient, its heavy wooden door carved with symbols that pulsed with faint blue light. The sign above—if you could call the twisted metal sigil a sign—curled like smoke frozen in place.

I stopped a few paces from the door. “Are you sure about this?”

Kazrek nodded once. “He’s not dangerous.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

His gaze flicked toward me, steady and unreadable in the dim light. “I'm sure.”

My hand found the door handle—cool metal, worn smooth by countless palms before mine. It turned with unexpected ease, and the door swung inward on silent hinges.

The interior struck me first with its scent—warm resin and dry parchment, with an electric undertone that reminded me of lightning-struck wood. Then came the light: blue flames in glass lanterns cast everything in an eerie glow, making shadows move when they shouldn't. The walls held shelves upon shelves of strange objects—rune stones, etched tools, scrolls tied with silver thread, jars of liquid that seemed to shift even when still.

Behind a low counter strewn with strange implements and dusted with something that glittered faintly, a figure straightened.

Sylwen Darkleaf was nothing like I'd expected. Tall and slender, with deep brown skin that contrasted sharply with his long platinum hair, he carried himself with a fluid grace that made even stillness seem like movement. His chest was bare beneath an open robe etched with glowing sigils, and similar marks traced patterns across his skin—not tattoos, exactly, but like something beneath the skin had risen to the surface to be read.

His smile, when it came, was warm but somehow distant, as if part of him were always elsewhere.

"The healer returns," he said, voice like silk over stone. His gaze, luminous and strange, shifted to me. "And you've brought a guardian of secrets."

I stiffened. "Excuse me?"

"The ink maker," he clarified, his smile deepening fractionally. "Your hands speak volumes, even when you don't."

Kazrek stepped forward. "We need your expertise, Sylwen."

"Of course you do," he replied, almost amused. "It's a rare soul who seeks the runemaster for casual conversation." He gestured to the space behind the counter. "Come. Whatever brought you through my door deserves better than threshold talk."

We followed him past the counter into another room—a circular space lined with tapestries that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at them. At the center stood a table of dark wood, its surface etched with concentric circles and strange symbols.

Sylwen gestured for us to sit on the cushions surrounding it. "Wine? Tea? Something stronger?"

"Nothing," Kazrek said.

"Just answers," I added.

Sylwen's smile didn't falter. "Ah. The most expensive request of all." He settled across from us, his movements liquid. "What question brings you to my door after dark?"

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small cloth-wrapped bundle. Carefully, I unfolded it to reveal the cracked pendant with its strange symbol. Beside me, Kazrek’s hand flexed once against his knee—quiet, controlled.

"We need to know what this is," I said, pushing it across the table toward him.

Sylwen didn't touch it. He simply looked, his expression unchanging but something in his eyes shifting—like clouds passing across the moon. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft crackle of the blue flames.

When he finally spoke, his voice was different. Lower. Rougher at the edges. “Where did you find this?” His tone wasn’t accusatory, but it held weight. A question meant not to satisfy curiosity but to measure consequence.

"Does it matter?" Kazrek asked.

"This mark doesn't appear by accident," Sylwen interrupted. His gaze flicked up to mine, penetrating. "And you wouldn't be here if it weren't for someone you love."

My throat tightened. "My niece. She... something is wrong."

"You've seen changes," Sylwen said, filling in the blanks. "Shadows where there weren't any before. Moments when she seems... not quite herself."

I nodded, unable to speak.

Sylwen's fingers hovered over the pendant, not quite touching it. Then, with deliberate slowness, he rolled up the sleeve of his robe.

My breath caught.

Kazrek leaned forward, voice low. “It’s the same.”

The symbol was etched into Sylwen’s forearm—faded now, a silvery scar against his dark skin, but unmistakable.

"Yes," Sylwen agreed. "I've been taken. And—unlike most—I've been returned."

The word slammed into me like a punch.

Taken .

I saw it again—scrawled across the wall of my shop, red as blood, the ink still seeping into the grain of the wood when I found it. A warning. A threat.

"What does it mean?" I asked, not sure I even wanted to know. "Taken?"

"The Mark of the Taken," he said. "A relic of the Shadowfall War. A binding sigil, used to create vessels for corrupted magic." He traced the scar with one long finger. "Those who bore it typically vanished—either into shadow, or death. I was... an exception."

I leaned forward, pulse quickening. "What happened?"

"I was a scholar before the war," Sylwen said, his gaze unfocused now, looking somewhere beyond us. "When corruption spread through the Alder network, I offered myself as bait. A trap. I would allow myself to be marked, to infiltrate and learn their secrets."

He laughed, a hollow sound. "Pride. Always the most elegant weapon against the clever."

The blue light flickered, casting his features into sharper relief.

"The ritual worked exactly as intended—just not as I had understood it. I became a vessel. Perfect, they said. Elves last longer than humans before being consumed." His voice had grown distant. "I felt myself eroding. Bit by bit. Not my body—my will. My essence. Like watching yourself dissolve in a mirror while being unable to look away."

Kazrek's hand found mine under the table, warm and steady. I gripped it tight.

"How did you survive?" I whispered.

Sylwen's eyes refocused, landing on us with uncomfortable clarity. "I didn't," he said simply. "I was saved."

He pulled his sleeve back down, covering the mark. "Her name was Aylan. A human healer—one with an uncommon gift for cleansing magic. She was fearless. Stubborn. The kind of woman who never waited for permission to fix what was broken. Even me."

The implication hung in the air, heavy as winter fog.

"She tore the shadow out of me piece by piece," Sylwen continued. "She burned through her own magic to do it—lit herself up like a pyre and pulled the darkness into her so I wouldn’t drown in it. And it worked." His voice caught, just barely. "She died in my arms three days later."

Kazrek's grip on my hand tightened almost painfully.

"I'm sorry," I said, the words utterly inadequate.

Sylwen smiled—a real smile this time, touched with aching fondness. "She used to say that to me. 'I'm sorry,' as if she were somehow responsible for the world's cruelty." His fingers brushed over the pendant on the table. "The Taken were vessels. Containers for something that should never have been bound. The mark is how it claims you—how it changes you, slowly, until you're gone, and only the shell remains."

I thought of Maeve—her bright eyes, her curious hands, her fierce little heart—and felt sick. "Is there a way to remove it? To save someone who's been marked?"

Sylwen's gaze shifted to Kazrek. Something passed between them—an understanding I couldn't quite grasp.

"There is always a cost," Sylwen said softly. "The magic must go somewhere."

"Tell me," I demanded, voice sharper than I'd intended. "Whatever it is, just—tell me."

"It's not simple knowledge to be passed like coin," Sylwen replied. "The magic doesn't want to die. But it can be bound. With will. With sacrifice."

"What kind of sacrifice?" Kazrek asked, his voice low and rough.

Sylwen didn't answer directly. Instead, he said, "Love is the oldest magic. It calls things to it. It saves..." He paused, and the light seemed to dim around him. "...or it damns."

A tense silence spread between us. My chest felt too tight, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Kazrek leaned forward. "There has to be something—a ritual, a counter-spell—"

"There is," Sylwen interrupted. He looked between us, his expression unreadable. "But are you willing to pay what it costs, healer? Are you willing to carry what comes after?"

The question wasn't directed at me. It was for Kazrek.

I felt something shift beside me—a subtle change in Kazrek's posture, a tension in his frame that hadn't been there before. When I glanced at him, his face was set in hard lines, his jaw tight.

"I've seen enough death," Kazrek said, voice flat.

Sylwen nodded slowly. "So had Aylan."

Something cold unspooled in my chest. Not fear. Not quite. Fear was sharp. This was slower—heavier. A sinking awareness I didn’t know how to name.

Because I’d come here hoping for an answer.

And I’d found one.

But it was shaped like sacrifice.

“There are ways to buy time,” Sylwen said finally. “A binding ward. It won’t cure her, but it may slow the unraveling. Keep the magic from feeding too deeply.” He reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a rune stone—smooth and black, etched with a sigil that shimmered faintly blue in the lanternlight. He held it out to me. “Keep it close to her skin. Near the pulse point, if you can. The shadow will resist it. But it will remember pain.”

I took it carefully, the stone oddly warm in my palm.

“What do we do when it stops working?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

Sylwen’s mouth curved, not into a smile this time—but something older. Sadder.

“Then you stop asking the wrong question.”

I frowned.

“Not what do you do ,” he said. “But what will you choose .”

Kazrek rose first. I followed, the rune stone clenched tight in my palm.

There was nothing else he could tell us. No final revelation waiting to soften the blow. No hidden cure tucked behind his tapestries.

Sylwen had given us all he could.

Outside, the night air hit like a slap—sharp and sudden, slicing through the fog in my chest. I drew my cloak tight around me, breath clouding in the lamplight. The Mark of the Taken. A vessel. A price.

The words churned in my mind, too heavy to settle.

Kazrek walked beside me in silence. His expression was unreadable, his eyes fixed ahead—but there was a distance to him now, like he’d stepped behind some inner wall I didn’t know how to breach.

We turned a corner, the street empty save for the whisper of wind and the soft tap of our boots against stone. I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“That woman,” I said, voice soft. “Aylan. She saved him by taking the mark herself.”

Kazrek said nothing.

“She chose it,” I continued, pushing the words out, even though they scraped on the way up. “She saw what was happening and didn’t wait for someone else to fix it. She—” I swallowed hard. “She did what had to be done.”

Still nothing. Just the quiet crunch of his steps on damp stone. His jaw was tight. His eyes forward. And I thought: He knows .

He knew what I was thinking. What I was already planning.

I stopped walking. “Kazrek.”

He kept going a few steps before realizing I wasn’t beside him. When he turned, he didn’t look angry—just tired. Guarded. Like someone already bracing for a blow.

“Talk to me,” I said, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. “Please.”

“There’s nothing to say,” he replied. His voice was low, rough. “We know what we’re facing now.”

“Do we?” I asked. My voice cracked. “Because it sounds like we’re facing one choice. One way to stop this.”

I didn’t say I’ll do it.

I didn’t have to.

Kazrek looked at me then, and for a split second, something flickered in his gaze—pain, maybe. Fury. But it vanished too fast to name.

“We should get back to Maeve,” he said.

He turned before I could answer. Shoulders squared. Face set. Like he couldn’t—wouldn’t—have this conversation. Like it was already too late.

And that’s when I knew.

He wouldn’t try to stop me.

Maybe he even agreed with me.

And it hollowed me out more than I expected—this quiet confirmation that he saw what I was willing to do and wasn’t going to fight me on it.

So I followed him. We walked through the dark streets in silence, the weight of Sylwen’s words pressing heavier with each step.

The Taken. A vessel for darkness. A price that had to be paid.

I would pay it.

And if Kazrek had already started letting go… I would just have to carry that, too.