Page 88 of Shifting Hearts

FIVE

Eris

T he cathedral breathed around us.

There was no wind, no real air in here — at least, not the kind that stirred leaves or carried a scent — but I felt the old Wyrd magic as it exhaled with every heartbeat, every tiny shift of stone beneath our feet.

The air was thick, heavy with something ancient and watching.

Moss clung to the cracked walls like frozen veins, and somewhere far off in the shadowed corners, water dripped with a steady, hollow echo.

Beneath my skin, a faint hum vibrated, as if the stones themselves were pulsing with memory.

I sat with my back pressed to the moss-covered stone, knees drawn up beneath my chin, and watched Brannon pace like the caged wolf that he was.

The light from the fire I’d managed to build flickered low and golden, as it threw long shadows that chose to dance across his sharp features — but even the fire can’t touch the wild, restless energy coiling beneath his skin.

It twists and snaps beneath his ribs, restless and unspent.

He had finally discarded his coat — the heavy fabric folded and forgotten beside the altar like a discarded shroud — and under the flickering light, his muscles twitched beneath his worn shirt.

It’s not the cold that has him trembling, but something sharper.

Rage, or grief perhaps. It’s hard to tell.

“I can hear you thinking,” I murmured, breaking the silence. My voice sounded small against the vast space of this forgotten cathedral, almost as if it had been swallowed by the cavernous space.

He stopped suddenly, the storm outside pressed in like a fist against the sealed entrance, rattling the stones in their ancient joints. His eyes flashed in the dim light, wild and wary, twin fires barely contained. “You want me to stop?”

“No,” I said softly. “I want you to talk.”

He scoffed, turned his back to me, all broad and wolflike in silhouette.

The fire crackled between us, and the heavy scent of wet stone and moss along with threads of old magic hung around.

The storm roared beyond the doors, to the outside world that we could no longer reach. I almost hated it. Almost.

Still, the silence stretched between us, and slowly, carefully, I slipped the cord from around my neck. “I’ve kept this,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, like a secret, spilled among the shadows. Fitting really given where we were. “For years. Before I even knew what it was.”

Brannon turned toward me, suspicion sharp in his gaze. The way his eyes flickered over the bone was almost reverent, wary. I held the bone up so he could see it clearly — the faint glint of pale ivory catching the firelight, too sharp and too large to be human. A fang. His fang.

“I found it in the dreamscape,” I said. “Back when I was still with the Dark Court. I didn’t know why I picked it up — I just… felt like I should. Like it wanted to be kept safe.”

He stepped forward slowly, cautiously, eyes locked on the tooth as if it might suddenly open its jaws and strike. “That’s not possible.”

“And yet,” I whispered. “Here it is.”

Brannon crouched down opposite me, his shadow falling over mine, swallowed in the firelight. His gaze snapped to mine — sharp, searching, like he’s looking for some truth buried beneath the surface. “I lost that tooth in a dream.”

“I know.”

“It bled.”

“Dreambone always does.”

He doesn’t reach for it. He knew better. The bone pulsed faintly in my palm, thrumming against the thread of fate that was tangled between us — something stubborn and raw and yet unbroken, despite everything.

Now I understood. It was his tether.

“You cut your own fate thread,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

He exhaled — not a sigh, but a death rattle he’d held in his throat for far too long. “Yes.”

My breath caught. I hadn’t expected him to admit it.

“I did it to save my sister,” he said, voice low and rough… cracked. “Wyrd wolves… there’s so few of us left. And she… there was a curse, something ancient, tangled deep in the Wyrd, and it demanded something be severed. It didn’t speak of what, or who, so I gave it mine.”

“And the tooth…?”

“Dreamscape logic, I guess. The fang was a part of the old me, the one that’s still caught in that endless, shifting dream realm. When I came back, I wasn’t whole.”

“You came back,” I echoed, disbelief threaded in my voice.

He nodded, jaw tight. “But the thread never healed right. The Wyrd stitched me back together, but when it did, it did so with only half of my soul.”

I got it now. The way he shied from my touch. The way his eyes darkened when I pressed the tooth to my skin. The way he flinched was like I had just opened a wound, because I had.

“I’m your punishment,” I said softly, almost afraid to speak the truth aloud.

His gaze sharpened, furious and raw. “What?”

“The death-oath,” I said. Each word dragged as though it had been waiting years to be spoken. “I made it years ago. A name I didn’t know, a face I’d never seen. The Dark Court gave me blood, and I drank it. I thought it was a metaphor.”

“Nothing with the Dark Court is ever metaphor,” he snarled, his voice brittle with pain, that was sharp enough to cut.

“No,” I agreed, my tone weighed down with the bitterness that truth brought. “And now here we are.”

He lowered his gaze to the tooth resting in my palm, his eyes tracing the pale curve as though it might vanish if he blinked. When his gaze lifted back to mine, there was something fierce and wounded in it. “And what will you do with it?”

“I’ve carried it this long,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady despite the storm inside me. “Might as well hear its story.”

I saw the hesitation flicker in his eyes — the war raging beneath the surface of his skin. Then something inside him gave way. Not with a shatter, not with a cry, but a slow, almost imperceptible unravelling, like a blade sliding free from a sheath.

“I’m tired,” he said, his voice rough and low, scraped raw by years of silence. “I was never meant to be a guardian. The Wyrd made me one. Forced me to watch. To kill. To protect. Always circling. Always hunting. Never resting.”

His voice cracked, and in that break I saw it — the wolf in chains. Not chains of iron, but far crueller ones: chains of purpose, of duty, of endless knowledge and endless loneliness.

“I’ve wanted to die for a long time,” he admitted, his eyes flickering away like he was afraid the cavern itself might carry the words back to him.

“Then why hadn’t you?” I asked softly, though my heart already throbbed with the answer.

His eyes found mine, steady and unflinching now. “Because the Wyrd wouldn’t let me. Until now.”

The weight of his words settled like stones in my chest, heavy and final. He thought I was his executioner. Maybe I was.

“I won’t kill you, Brannon,” I said, the promise slipping out before I could stop it.

“You already saw it,” he said. His voice was quieter now, but there was no less truth in it. “In the threads. When we touched.”

“Yes, but fate isn’t fixed. And you didn’t want to die. Not really.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “You can’t.”

I reached for him, my hand trembling. He flinched at the movement, but he didn’t pull away, not completely, so I was able to press the tooth into his palm.

The burn caught us both like a shard of lightning — agony and ecstasy braided together, electric fire tearing through skin and bone, magic singing deep beneath our flesh. I didn’t let go, and neither did he.

“You gave up your thread once,” I whispered, my voice barely holding steady. “Maybe it’s time to take it back.”

“And if it kills us both?” he asked, the words rough as sandpaper.

“Then at least we go together.”

He stared at me, stunned.

Then came the faintest twitch — the tiniest tilt of his mouth, a flicker of something too human to deny.

“We’re a terrible match,” he murmured.

“Disastrous,” I replied.

“Doomed.”

“Completely.” I leaned in, my breath catching on the word. “And yet.”

Brannon closed his eyes.

For once, he let the silence settle.

No pacing. No snarling.

Just quiet.

The tooth cooled between us.

And in that quiet, the Wyrd began to weave again.