Page 28

Chapter 27

T hey began to move in unison, a slow, measured lift of hands—palms angled toward the sky, sleeves falling back to reveal ink-black sigils scored into skin.

The Woman in Blue stood closest to Maeve, hands hovering just above her chest. Her eyes had gone pale—milky with power or possession, I couldn’t tell. Drev knelt opposite her at the altar’s base.

And Maeve—

Maeve was splitting.

Her glow came in stutters—brief flares under her ribs, then dimming, like warmth replaced by cold. Shadow leaked from her edges, curling down her arms, pooling in the hollows of her collarbones like ink in water. For a moment, her skin looked wrong—too pale, too translucent. Like a girl halfway unmade.

"Maeve!" My voice cracked as I slammed my hands against the ward again. It didn’t even shudder. "Maeve, baby, listen to me, you have to stay with me—open your eyes, come on—”

Her head lolled slightly to one side. Her lips parted, breath shallow and wrong.

The runes on the vines pulsed. The sigils glowed brighter, turning from white to blue to a deep, sickened red.

Around the circle, the robed figures began to chant—not words, not exactly. Syllables that bent wrong in the air, that seemed to catch on my skin and stick. The ground beneath me beat in rhythm, slow and steady. I didn’t feel it through my boots—I felt it in my spine. A low, ancient pulse that didn’t belong to anything living.

The roots responded.

They swelled through the cracks in the stone, thick and veined, curling tighter around the altar’s base. I could see them moving now, subtle but deliberate. Syncing with the rhythm of Maeve’s breath. No—not her breath.

Her heartbeat. Every flicker of it echoed through the ground. Every slowing thud. The forest was listening.

I braced both palms to the barrier ward, forehead pressed hard to the shimmer. “Please,” I whispered. “Please, come back. I’m right here.”

But she didn’t hear me.

Or if she did—she was too far away to answer.

Drev rose from her position and turned to the Woman in Blue, who held something cupped between her palms—a small glass vial, stoppered with wax. My stomach dropped.

It was mine. The ink I’d sold her at the Night Market.

Deep plum, arcane-binding. Chosen for permanence. For holding power in place.

She broke the seal with a flick of her nail and tipped the ink into a shallow silver bowl. Drev dipped two fingers into the ink and turned back to Maeve.

Then, with careful precision, she reached out and began to paint.

The first glyph blazed across Maeve's forehead—a curve like a crescent moon, but twisted inward. Wrong. The second followed at her throat. The third over her heart. Each one burned brighter than the last, until I couldn't look directly at them without my eyes watering.

Maeve's body jerked.

Her back arched off the stone, spine bowing impossible and sharp. A sound caught in her throat—not quite a scream, but something worse. Something small and broken and lost.

"Stop!" I slammed against the ward again, harder this time. My shoulder cracked against it. Pain shot down my arm. "You're hurting her—"

But Drev didn't pause. Didn't even flinch. Her hands were steady as she drew the final mark. It unfurled at Maeve’s sternum—dark ink spilling into a spiral, its lines looping inward like a net being pulled tight. Not a ward, not truly. A cage, stitched into her skin with strokes meant to hold something in.

It almost looked like a protection sigil. Almost. But the more I looked, the more wrong it felt. Each curve drew the eye inward, spiraling toward a center that wasn’t there.

The Mark of the Taken.

A symbol meant to bind what shouldn’t be bound. A cage shaped like a child.

Maeve's fingers twitched. Just slightly. Almost nothing. But in her palm, clutched tight against her side—something stirred. A warmth. A pulse. Faint at first, then stronger.

The compass.

I'd forgotten she was holding it. She’d still had it when the woman took us, must have kept it close even as she slept. The metal caught the ritual light and bent it—not reflecting, but gathering, like it was drawing something in.

Drev's hand stilled mid-stroke. Her eyes narrowed. "What—"

The compass flared.

Not with magic. Not with shadow. With something older. Something that remembered the way home.

The needle spun once, sharp and decisive. Then again. Faster. The glow built beneath Maeve's fingers until I could see the bones through her skin, lit from within by something warm and golden and alive.

Drev reached for it.

The moment her fingers touched Maeve’s hand, the compass exploded with light. The ward shuddered—rippled like heat off stone. For one heartbeat, it went thin. Fragile.

I didn't think. I threw myself forward.

This time, instead of solid resistance, I felt give. Then tear. Then—

I hit the ground hard, shoulder first, stones biting into my palms as I scrambled up. My legs weren't steady, but I didn't care. I lunged for the altar, for Maeve, for anything I could reach—

The woman’s magic caught me mid-stride. Held me. My muscles locked. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

The second pulse hit.

This one was different. Deeper. Golden instead of white. It split the air like thunder without sound. The trees shuddered. The roots beneath the stone writhed. Every leaf in the canopy above us went still.

The ward didn't just break.

It shattered.

Light flooded the clearing—raw and fierce and familiar. My skin tingled. The mark on my throat burned, sudden and sharp, like a beacon calling out. Like an answer.

Kazrek.

He burst through the remnants of the barrier as if it were nothing but smoke. His magic rolled off him in waves—not the usual steady warmth, but something wilder. Untethered. Alive.

He didn't look at me.

He didn't pause.

He moved.

Drev's voice cracked through the air—"Stop him!"—but she was already too late.

"Kazrek—!" His name tore from my throat, but he was already in motion.

He threw himself between Maeve and the circle of mages, gathering her small form against his chest. His body curved over hers like a shield, like armor, like something meant to break before it bent.

The ritual's magic surged outward—a wave of shadow and cold, laced with the power of the binding glyphs. It struck Kazrek full force, a torrent meant to imprison, to suppress. But instead of passing through him, it caught—held—twisted.

The shadows rose from the runes like smoke in wind, but wrong—drawn toward him instead of away. Coiling around his arms, his chest, seeking the points where his skin met Maeve's. Where connection lived. Where magic could flow.

"No!" I lunged forward, desperate to reach them. My fingers caught his wrist just as the spell closed again.

The circle slammed shut.

Reality bent.

Broke.

The world disappeared.

I felt my body freeze—caught between spaces, between breaths. Half-pulled into whatever realm the magic had carved between shadow and light. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only watch as the battlefield formed around us—broken earth and spilled blood and too many graves.

I didn’t belong here. I could feel it in my bones—the wrongness of it, the weight of something that wasn’t mine pressing in from all sides.

The battlefield wasn’t a place.

It was a memory.

The ground beneath me was cracked, blackened, seared through with old ash and the stink of burning metal. No trees here. No sky. Just a haze of smoke that hung too low, too thick, curling at the edges of the world like paper caught in flame.

And silence.

I stood on the edge of it. Caught between breath and unmaking. I could still feel the echo of Kazrek’s wrist beneath my hand, but he was gone. Or moved. Or—

No.

He was there.

Kneeling in the center of it all, Maeve clutched to his chest. Her little body limp, her curls streaked with soot, the compass still glowing faintly in her fist. Kazrek wasn’t glowing anymore. Whatever magic had answered my call was gone now—burned up in that first defiance.

He looked up.

His eyes met mine across the shattered plain—and there was something in them I’d never seen before. Not anger. Not fear.

Grief.

Grief so old it had grown roots in him. Grief so heavy it had bent his back without him noticing.

And then—

The shadows came.

Not charging. Not screaming. Just there. Slipping through the cracks in the earth. Crawling from the edges of the battlefield. Tall, thin, faceless things with too-long fingers and hollow chests.

They didn’t touch him.

They waited.

Behind them, something larger moved. A shape without form. A pressure without weight. Like a question you didn’t want to ask.

And Kazrek… didn’t move.

Didn’t run.

Didn’t flinch.

He looked down at Maeve—tucked her small hand tighter against his chest—and exhaled slow. Quiet. Final.

Then he stood.

And the shadows stepped forward.