Page 8

Chapter

Eight

IN THE TEMPLE RUINS

The air is colder than it should be. Crumbled stone walls barely protect the flickering flame at the center of a carved obsidian basin. Seven chairs now form a semicircle around it—none identical, all worn by time and power.

Instead of three cloaked figures, there are nine. One leans forward, gloved fingers steepled. “The huntress has not slowed her rise.”

Another taps a blade on her knee, disinterested. “She has already fractured one bloodline. The rest will follow.”

“It isn’t that simple. She’s awakened something.” The one with the curved antler mask speaks now, her voice soft but cold. “The girl is no longer merely a threat. She’s a key to unraveling everything.”

A fourth scoffs. “A key to what? More chaos?”

“Maybe to breaking the cycle,” the first says.

“No,” says the one seated highest, her cloak deep violet trimmed in iron thread. “She is not a key. She is a gate . And something is trying to come through her.”

Silence.

The air flickers.

A scroll unrolls on the stone table. It shows a map of Mirendel. The corrupted hunter sigils are marked in red. Seven of them.

“She’s drawn out the others,” someone murmurs.

“She’ll unify them,” another says. “Or destroy them.”

The one in the violet robe rises. “We must act. She’s touching forces we buried for a reason.”

“And if we fail?”

The fire dims dramatically.

“Then the death match comes early.”

“She’s touching forces we buried for a reason.”

Towering in shadow, the firelight barely brushes the violet-robed one’s face beneath her hood. “She is not the first, but she may very well be the last.”

A ripple of unease moves through the circle.

The antler-masked one folds her arms. “You swore the last hunter line was contained.”

“I believed it was, but the Secret Keeper unraveled more than her oath. She left cracks in the bindings. And now the curse is leaking through the wrong threads.”

“She left a daughter,” mutters another. “A mirror.”

The map flutters, though no wind moves.

“Bloodlines are converging,” says the first speaker. “Hunter, wolf, and key.”

Someone in the back laughs quietly. “A woman of prophecy and paradox.”

“Of chaos,” another corrects. “And chaos is highly contagious. Like a disease.”

The fire flares suddenly, high and gold. One of those seated flinches.

The violet-robed one slams a hand onto the table. “Enough! We will not speak of the prophecy like it’s a game. The huntress’s rise threatens everything we buried after the last war. If the bloodline completes the circle?—”

“It doesn’t just awaken old powers,” the antlered one finishes. “It opens the door.”

A door she doesn’t even know exists.

“Then what do we do?” someone asks. “Kill her now?”

Silence.

The violet-robed one lowers their hand. “No, we let her open it.”

Gasps ripple around the circle.

One stands. “That’s madness!”

“We let her open it.” The violet one’s voice is like iron as the flames gutter low. “Then we shut it behind her.”