Page 23

23

Oberon

Quinn curled in on herself, and her arms tightened over her ribs. She processed and pieced things together just as I did. Quinn didn’t let fear dictate her thoughts. She was logical, methodical, and stubborn as sin. If she was shaken, it meant she knew I was right.

The chair creaked beneath my weight when I sat down again. My thoughts churned as I worked through the connections, staring at the sigils in her notes. They still gnawed at me, just out of reach. The mist. How the thing in the field had dissolved, vanishing as if it had never been there. It hadn’t just disappeared. It had turned to mist, dissipating into the fog that clung to this cursed land, a sickness.

Something that shouldn’t have been able to cross over from the Veil. Something summoned … a tether .

My gaze flicked back to the journal, reopening it to the scrawled markings of the sigils we had uncovered. Sigils represented intent and purpose, serving as protection or binding, but something had corrupted them. Turned them into the bones, and the thing buried beneath the dirt. I flexed my fingers as I leaned forward. That was the connection. The thing in the field wasn’t just a cursed beast; it was connected to what was buried, drawn to it, and feeding off it. Which meant the body was the anchor.

If this thing was from the Veil, it couldn’t exist without being held here. That’s why the creature hadn’t fully manifested and had dissolved instead of dying. It wasn’t just being summoned. It was being sustained.

The sigils didn’t protect against the entity of the field. They kept whatever was buried bound to this place. A slow, sick feeling churned within me. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath.

Quinn glanced at me. “What?”

I met her gaze, feeling its weight settle in my chest. “That thing isn’t just a curse. It’s a manifestation, and that means it has rules. Something made it and is keeping it here.” I tapped the sketch of the sigils. “And I think it’s that body we dug up.”

Her brows pulled together. “You think it’s tied to it?”

“I think it’s more than that. I think it needs it. It’s not just a body. It’s a fucking beacon. A bridge between here and whatever is bleeding through from the Veil.”

Her throat bobbed. “So, what do we do?”

The answer settled in my bones the moment the pieces fell into place. “We burn it.”

“You said that last time,” she muttered under her breath. There was a beat of silence. “We go at first light.”

I shook my head. “I go. Now.”

“Like hells you are.”

“Dilthen Doe, if that thing comes back while we’re out there…” I paused. “I need you alive. You’re the one it’s hunting.” She chewed her lip as I leaned forward. “We need to find out why it’s targeting you. Until we do, you aren’t just a target. You’re bait.”

Quinn’s eyes darkened. Her jaw clenched so tightly that I could hear her teeth grind together. “I’m not staying behind,” she said, unwavering. “If that thing comes back, it will be after me. Do you think I’ll just sit here and wait for you?”

I exhaled hard through my nose, determined to keep my voice lowered. “Yes. That is exactly what you are going to do.”

The firelight carved sharp angles into her face, turning the frustration in her eyes into defiance. Determination. A challenge I didn’t have time for. “No, Sinclaire. I can handle myself.”

I stared at her, trying to suppress the frustration in my chest, but it wasn’t just that. It was something more profound—the feeling I had since that creature in the field had waited for her, hunted her—the same feeling I had when she threw herself at the nightmare in Silverfel without hesitation.

I hated it.

It made my pulse quicken and made me want to reach for her, to anchor her here where I knew she was safe. “This isn’t about whether or not you can handle yourself,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s about what will happen if you don’t.”

Her lips parted.

“If that thing comes back while we’re out there, we won’t be able to kill it. Not yet. You know that.” My hand curled into a fist on the table. “And if it gets to you before we figure this out, we lose everything.”

I lose everything.

She swallowed, but she didn’t relent. Of course, she didn’t. She never did. I could see the war in her eyes—pride and fury clashing with reason, logic battling the undeniable truth that she wasn’t in control. And I wasn’t willing to gamble with her life to appease her stubbornness.

“I’m not some delicate thing you must protect,” she muttered. Her voice was quieter, but just as fierce.

I huffed a bitter laugh. “Believe me, I know.” Saints, did I know. There was nothing delicate about Quinn. She was sharp edges and fire, unyielding in a way that made people underestimate her. But I didn’t. I had seen how she fought. How she was always three steps ahead, always calculating her next move. She was quick, resourceful, and fucking brilliant.

And none of that mattered if the thing in that field got to her first.

The thought sent a rush of discomfort through me. My mind conjured images I didn’t want—her eyes going wide in shock, her body crumpling, her blood soaking the soil beneath her feet. I shoved my chair back, stood to meet her again, and though I didn’t close the space between us, I made sure she felt the weight of my presence.

The finality of my words.

“Let me do this, Herbalist,” I said, softer but no less severe. “Let me end it.”

Her fingers twitched at her sides. The rise and fall of her chest measured the weight of her words to follow. She sighed, tilting her head back to meet my gaze again.

“Fine,” she muttered. Her voice was firm but hesitant, wavering just enough to betray what she refused to say out loud: Don’t go. Stay.

“But if you don’t come back—”

“I will.”

She searched my face. “You better.”

Despite the tension still wound in my gut, I smirked. And she froze. Her eyes flicked to my mouth before she caught herself, tearing her gaze away. A faint blush crept up her neck and traced her skin.

Back in the field, she stared at me that way, her eyes fixed on my mouth.

When I realized she had been staring, my body went rigid, betraying me. It sent a pulse of heat through my gut when I realized she hadn’t just looked at me; she had raked her eyes over me. Gazed at me. And she blushed from what she saw. She had tried to play it off then, just as she tried to do now.

There was a shift between us, the way the air stretched thin, pulled taut between what we would and wouldn’t say.

The way she avoided my eyes and the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t looking told me she pondered about it. About me. About what it meant that I stood so close, smirked at her, with a darkness pulling at the borders of my lips. Because I hadn’t before. And the way she had to force herself to look away, to swallow whatever had surfaced in that moment. It sent a satisfied sensation snaking through my chest.

I moved close enough to watch the flush creep higher. To watch her react. “Are you worried about me, Dilthen Doe?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes too hastily. It was defensive. Flustered. “Shut up, Sinclaire.”

I huffed a quiet laugh, but I knew her well enough now. If I took too long, she would follow. I just had to burn that thing before she had the chance.

THE FIELD WAS quiet without Quinn. The unnatural silence descended, as though the land had stilled in her absence. I should have focused, listened for the faintest shift of wheat stalks, the near-imperceptible rustle of something moving through the dense, stagnant air, and searched for the smell of rot or any sign that the ground had been disturbed by more than just our hands. But I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts continued to wind their way back to her, to how her breath caught, the way a blush rose high on her cheeks, crept down her neck, and disappeared beneath the collar of her shirt, how her lips had parted, her pupils dilated, and the sweat had clung to her, dampening the delicate strands of hair at her temples, trailing the curve of her throat. I had been close enough to see it. Close enough to reach out, to touch.

I wanted to.

I wanted to trace the sharp edge of her jaw and press my thumb against her bottom lip to see if it was as soft as it looked. To tilt her chin up and—

Flexing my fingers at my sides, I forced the thought away. Maybe it was the heat. It had gotten to her first, warped her senses, and made her look at me in that way.

Or maybe it had gotten to me.

Because I had smirked and hadn’t even tried to stop it. I hated it. I loathed how it had happened so fast and how she made it so easy, as if she had peeled back layers I hadn’t meant to lose. I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled that way. I had with Garrick, long ago, when the world was simpler. But that was different.

And then the moment had shattered.

Her eyes widened in horror when she realized what was moving beneath her. The instant of stillness before the hand shot up from the dirt, fingers reaching, grasping, and searching for her. The same feeling that had torn through me in Silverfel came rushing back with jagged, splintered edges, embedding itself within my chest.

I clenched my teeth and forced the thought back.

Focus.

I kept moving, each step deliberate as I drew closer to the center of the field. The shovels were still there, discarded where we had left them. The ground remained raw, its edges broken and disturbed from when we had uncovered it.

An unexpected onset of unease settled over me as I wracked my brain, combing through everything Lord Everette had told us, everything the villagers had whispered with fear thick in their voices, and everything Quinn and I had seen firsthand. The things we had fought, the bodies, the sickness, the thin veil of air that made my skin crawl, and the one thing we hadn’t considered: if that thing was moving, it wasn’t tethering those creatures from the Veil to the crops anymore.

The field had been a gatekeeper. It was a tether between whatever unnatural force lingered and the village itself. And without its anchor, what stopped those things from the Veil from spilling further into Vaelwick?

What stopped them from reaching Quinn?

Lord Everette’s warning surfaced unbidden in my mind. The way his face had paled when he said it. His voice had dropped above a whisper as if he risked summoning whatever it was. The villagers had seen something lurking outside their windows. Standing just beyond the glass, watching them.

This was what it wanted. The necromancy hadn’t been just a warning. It wasn’t a mindless display of power. No—this had been deliberate. A lure. A trap to draw me out and separate me from Quinn.

My pulse pounded in my ears, and I took a slow step back, my fingers curling at my sides. I had walked right into it, right into its design. And now, Quinn was back at the mansion, unaware. Vulnerable.

The air was oppressive as unseen hands grabbed at my skin. My breath became sharper. Every instinct screamed that I was being watched, that whatever had crawled free from this grave hadn’t left. It was waiting.

There was a rustle behind me, a whisper in the dead wheat. My focus snapped toward the sound with my muscles coiled. The silence stretched taut. My senses strained against the unnatural stillness, trying to catch what my eyes couldn’t see. Then, the air bent. It was deeper than wind or a shift in temperature. A ripple pressed against my back, warping the space behind me, and pulling at the edges of reality itself.

I twisted. The creature stood tall, gaunt, and smiling. The dead wheat remained still around it as if Elduvaris had been reluctant to acknowledge its presence. I met its hollow gaze without flinching, my fingers steady as they curled around the hilt of my sword.

The voice scraped against my skull. It was hollow and grating, brittle bones dragged across rusted metal. Familiar in the way rot clung to memory. It held the same unnatural resonance as we had faced in Silverfel, but older.

“What do you seek, Fae?”

My jaw tightened. My instincts bristled at the weight of those words. It was a test. A challenge. I held its gaze, feeling the pulse of the ancient being staring back at me through the yawning abyss of its eyes. “Where is the body?” I demanded.

Its grin stretched unnaturally wide, splitting its face in two. The surrounding wheat shuddered in response.

“The dead do not linger where they are unwelcome.”

I stepped forward. “Then where is it?”

Its head tilted further, its movement sharp and disjointed. It mimicked life without understanding how it worked. It was a grotesque parody of human motion, a puppet whose strings had been tangled and pulled at odd angles. Then it laughed — a dry, brittle sound that scraped against the night. It wasn’t the laughter that came from amusement. There was no mirth, no warmth. It was hollow and soulless, like it remembered how laughter should sound but couldn’t replicate it.

I didn’t let my gaze waver. I didn’t dare. But it didn’t matter. There was no warning, no motion. It was there one moment and closer the next, as if the distance had unraveled between us. The space it occupied hadn’t just shrunk; it bent and pressed against me with a weight that had nothing to do with its physical form.

The air grew dense with rot that was older than decay. The smell of something long past putrefaction that should no longer exist but refused to be forgotten seeped into my skin and bones, crawling up my spine and pressing into the gaps between my vertebrae. It didn’t just stand before me—it imposed itself, warping the space between us until proximity became meaningless. It was toying with me. It knew, as well as I did, that I couldn’t kill it, that I couldn’t destroy it without its body. This was a game, and I had to play by its rules.

Its jaw creaked as it parted its lips—if they could even be called that. The voice that spilled into the night was hollow and jagged. “Tell me, Fae,” it crooned. “ What do you fear ?”

If it sensed my Fae blood with ease, what else did it sense?

The air between us throbbed with unnatural and probing energy—not physically, but more profoundly. the borders of my mind, testing and pressing as it searched for something to permeate.

Was that what fed it?

Fear?

That explained how it moved, spoke, and pressed closer, invading the space around it, a shifting shadow that refused to obey the world’s laws. This thing wasn’t just a mindless corpse-dweller.

It was a predator, and I was its prey.

“I don’t feel fear,” I deadpanned.

The thing laughed again, and the sound came from beneath me, risen from Elduvaris itself, something buried so deep that the weight of time couldn’t smother it. It was an awful rattling, hollow chorus that came apart and reformed in the same breath. “ You lie .”

“I am an assassin,” I reasoned. “I have watched the light leave a man’s eyes as he clutched his own throat. I have heard the final, gasping breaths of those who realized—too late—that death had claimed them. I have known fear. I have seen it. Smelled it. Felt it clinging to the air like a dying ember.” I took a slow step forward, holding its hollow, shifting gaze. “But I do not feel it.”

Its head tilted further. The movement was unnatural, as if its bones—if it had any—were barely held together. The laughter that followed was worse than before, a chorus of voices speaking at once. A dozen, maybe more, echoed from the void where its mouth should have been.

Her scream, high and raw, as if ripped from her throat and twisted, pierced the field. My entire body tensed. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been. But my instincts didn’t care.

My body, my blood, screamed to run, to save her. I felt the shift in my veins and eyes as I forced myself to stay rooted where I stood. It was toying with me. It had seen the way I reacted. The thing made a sound between a chuckle and a rasping breath.

Mocking. Gloating.

“You have grown soft for a human, Fae.”

My jaw clenched, and my teeth ground as I swallowed the instinct to lunge, to silence it. That was what it wanted. It tried to unravel me. Picked at the threads of my restraint to pull them apart. “What do you want?”

The air shook when its voice darkened, turning jagged and violent. “The herbalist must bleed.”