Page 230 of Lana Pecherczyk

To save Cloud, Blake, and River’s lives? Or because Ash had finally come to collect what had always been his? What he’d been waiting for his entire life.

His clawed finger hovered over the triad tattoo again. They deserved an answer, even if the truth would cut them. In the end, he couldn’t do it. Not yet. But a cut had to be made, nonetheless. It just had to be clean, final, and with no room for guilt or rescue missions.

The triad might have a rocky relationship, but they were friends. Brothers. Family. More so than the female who inhabited these tunnels.

Frowning, he traced his answer, each letter deliberate:

Because this is my choice. Honor it.

He left it long enough to know it had been received, and then, before either could respond, he drew the feather quill from his collar. Ancient power thrummed against his fingers, waking at the touch of a descendant. He pressed the bony point to the triad tattoo and drove it beneath his skin.

Pain exploded up his arm as the sliver sliced through ink and flesh. The triad bond broke like a snapped string, leaving only silence in place of their presence. Blood welled around the quill, leaving a dark stain beneath Ash’s skin, but the connection was gone.

Completely.

No more desperate reaches across the void.

No rescue.

He flexed his fingers. Ground his teeth. Swallowed.

Alright, fuck face,he imagined River saying.You made your nest. Now go lie in it.

He continued walking.

Air shifted, brushing against his face, carrying scents that brought him back to his past as if it were yesterday. The old bones of ancestors. Dust from artifacts that had crumbled to nothing in forgotten vaults. If he strained his hearing, he could almost hear the whispers threading through the darkness.Blood calls. Home waits. Time to stop pretending.

The corridor stretched ahead, leading deeper into the heart of his mother’s life’s work, leading toward the chamber whereshe waited, no longer performing weakness as she had at the Shadow Market.

Leading toward whatever reckoning had been building for hundreds of years.

Each step carried him farther away from the boy River and Cloud had rescued and closer to whatever he’d always been underneath the grateful mask.

Behind him, the manabee lanterns dimmed. The tunnel widened into a circular chamber carved from rock by claws—not his—along with patterns etched so deep that they seemed to suck in the fading light.

His steps slowed as ancient mana thickened the air. He waited for his eyes to adjust. Each breath tasted of copper and ozone. She emerged seconds later, as if woven from shadows, no longer the injured creature who’d writhed on a pallet at the market. Her dark eyes held no surprise, only satisfaction, as if she’d been counting down the moments until his arrival.

“There’s my clever boy.” She circled slowly, inspecting him.

Ash set his shoulders and straightened his spine, matching her posture. “Mother.”

She trailed a talon along the carved wall. The scraping sound once grated against his nerves, but now it sparked something sharp and vigilant within him. His breathing adjusted without conscious thought, falling into rhythm with her movements—predator stalking predator.

“Two centuries of playing Guardian.” Her voice carried amusement. “Such dedication to the performance. Did you think I couldn’t feel you”—she paused, head tilting at that distinctive angle—“pulling strings across Elphyne like a spider in its web?”

Ash tracked her movements. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Her laugh echoed against the carved walls. “Oh, my darling heir. Still performing, even now.”

“I’m not performing.”

“Lies.”

“Fae can’t lie.”

Another laugh, this one more like an incredulous cackle.

“You’re so like your father.” Her winged arm raised, hand reaching for his face. She traced her talon down his temple to his Guardian mark and smiled. “Wasn’t it you, my heir, who taught me that the best lies are the ones you believe so deeply they become the truth?”