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EIGHT

EVRYN

T hey didn’t talk for a while.

The forest shifted around them as they walked, swallowing the silence like it was just another ghost with teeth.

The trees here were tall and skeletal, gnarled roots curling up through broken stone like claws trying to remember how to grab.

The air smelled of ash and rain. Every now and then, distant howls echoed from nowhere—a chorus of things that used to be human but had forgotten how to act like it.

This was the Shatterroads.

Veil-born trails that twisted logic and space, paths that followed memory instead of maps. They ran between crumbled kingdoms and half-buried temples, laid atop bones of wars older than memory.

Lucien didn’t offer direction. He just moved like he knew the way.

Always ten steps ahead. Always watching the shadows. And always saying nothing.

Evryn followed.

Because where else could she go?

Her boots crunched quietly over dead leaves and shattered charms scattered along the path—bits of old wards and broken glamours, cast off like snake skin. She clutched her coat tighter and eyed the jagged sky overhead, a mix of mauve and storm-brewing silver.

After what felt like an hour, Lucien finally spoke.

“How did you know who I was?”

His voice was low and even. Still sharp, though—like he kept it honed out of habit.

Evryn glanced at him. He hadn’t turned his head. Just kept walking.

“You said your name,” she replied.

“You didn’t just recognize my name. You knew it. You knew the House. The Queen.”

She hesitated. Then sighed. “Eamon.”

Lucien slowed slightly, but didn’t stop.

Evryn continued. “He raised me. My whole life, pretty much. He wasn’t just some guy with a shotgun and a grudge. He was—” her voice caught, and she took a breath, steadying herself, “—he was part of something. Before me. He never said what, not really. But he taught me things.”

“Like shifter bloodlines?”

“And the Houses. How they ruled. What they controlled. Who to avoid.” She shrugged. “He made me memorize the lineage of the Court of Claws like it was bedtime stories.”

Lucien let out a low sound. Not a laugh. Not quite.

“So he raised you for war.”

Evryn’s mouth pulled into a tight line. “He raised me to survive one.”

That shut Lucien up for a bit.

The wind picked up. Cold and curling through the branches like it had claws.

Evryn’s fingers fiddled with the bone charm around her neck.

“I didn’t understand it, not back then,” she said, softer now. “Why he made me learn all that stuff. Why I had to train when other girls my age were… I don’t know, dating. Watching trashy shows. Living.”

Lucien didn’t comment. But she could feel him listening.

“He said I had something in me. Something dangerous. Something that needed protecting. From others… and from myself.” She looked down, voice falling quieter. “He was scared of what I might become.”

Lucien’s steps slowed again.

“And you?” he asked, voice unreadable.

She glanced at him, unsure. “What about me?”

“Are you scared of what you might become?”

Evryn didn’t answer right away.

She thought about the fight in the alley. The way her body had moved without thinking. The raw instinct. The precision. She thought about how the shadows sometimes whispered, like they knew her name before she did.

“I don’t know,” she said finally.

Lucien nodded once, like that was the only honest answer.

They made camp near a split in the trail, beneath the ruins of what might’ve once been a shrine. Vines had claimed most of it, but a few worn carvings remained—panther sigils faded into the stone, eyes gouged out by time.

Lucien didn’t build a fire. Just tossed down his cloak and sat cross-legged, quiet as always. Watching.

Evryn didn’t ask questions.

She curled into herself against the roots of an old tree, wrapping her arms around her knees, heart heavy and eyes dry.

She didn’t trust him. But she didn’t fear him either.

And that was almost worse.

She remembered how his eyes had looked back at the train station—silver bright and full of some twisted cocktail of guilt and loyalty. She didn’t understand him, but she felt something in him that echoed in her.

Like they were both waiting for the other to make a move neither of them could take back.

That night, she dreamed of fire. And a panther crowned in silver.

Its body was sleek, glowing faintly under a blood-red moon. It paced a crumbling marble throne, eyes burning like molten steel, tail flicking in rhythm with a heartbeat she didn’t realize was her own.

In the dream, the throne cracked beneath her feet. Flames licked up through the floor. And something inside her stirred—ancient and aching, hungry and holy all at once.

She woke with a start.

Lucien was already standing, back to her, facing the horizon.

The sky had lightened to a hazy indigo.

Evryn didn’t speak. But part of her knew the dream hadn’t been a warning.

It was a beginning.