Page 10 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE ROT WITHIN

Kali’s Emotional State: Cold. Clear. Deadly. Fear pressed behind her ribs like a knife, but it only made her sharper. She would find Silas. Or she would tear the world open trying.

T

he map shimmered with lines of old magic and pulsing sigils. Kali stood at the command table, eyes narrowed, shadows curling around her like a sentient cloak. Astraeus seethed beneath her skin, pacing in her mind like a caged beast.

"He’s not dead," Astraeus snapped. "I’d feel it. But something is wrong. Something's twisting the tether."

Irina slammed a fresh report on the table. “Last trace was in the ruins of the Opal District. Half the city forgot it even existed. That’s Spiral Mouth territory now. Cloaked in rot. Magic dead zones. Hallucination sigils so deep, even the street signs lie.”

Kali’s jaw flexed. “Send three scouting shadows ahead. One aerial. One ground. One through the underlayer.”

Irina nodded. “Done. But we can't just walk in if the Spiral Mouth is evolving. We need protection wards, dragonflame, and tether spells. Maybe even a blood anchor.”

Kali’s eyes burned. “We’ll use mine.”

Astraeus growled in protest. "You’ll weaken yourself. "

“I don’t care.”

She stepped back, letting her shadows split across the floor. The tendrils slithered into the vault runes, activating a locked compartment. Inside lay a box carved from ritual stone and bleached bone. She opened it, revealing a needle longer than her hand, forged from mirrored steel.

Lev was already striding toward her. “You’re not doing this alone.”

Kali didn’t argue.

Astraeus raged harder. "Lev’s not enough. You need me. If you walk into Spiral territory without a full merge, I swear by the Nine Gates…"

Kali hesitated. Her heart thudded once. The idea of a full merge wasn’t new, but the consequences had always kept her just short of the edge. Her illness. Her bond threads. The darkness she carried. She’d never done it for a reason.

But Silas—“Then merge,” she said aloud. “No more half-measures.”….The shadows howled.

Astraeus surged forward, magic spiking through her bloodstream like lightning, and for a moment, her eyes turned pitch black.

The merge wasn’t complete. Not yet. But it was enough.

Pain flared up her spine and across her joints like a dozen tiny knives.

Psoriatic arthritis—and something worse now—scraping bone against magic. She shoved it down. Later. Later.

Irina flinched, stepping back. “Kali—your skin—”Veins of shadow coiled visibly under her flesh, twisting like tattooed storms .

Lev cursed low. “We leave in ten.”

Opal District — Spiral Territory

The streets of the Opal District were silent. Too silent.

Not even rats dared to move.

The magic here was curled wrong. It wasn’t dead. It was watching.

Kali’s boots crunched through charred gravel, her sigil still pulsing like a beacon under her glove. Her shadows moved ahead, slicing through the thick illusion fields.

Then—A scream.

Not human, not a dragon, but something in between.

They turned the corner.

And found Silas.

Pinned to a wall by threads made of living rot. His body shimmered with green-tinged magic. His chest heaved. Eyes bloodshot. Mouth sewn shut by a Spiral sigil.

Kali stopped breathing.

“Silas,” she whispered.

Astraeus roared. "GET HIM OUT."

Lev moved instantly, slicing the nearest thread with a blade infused with fire sigils. The thread screamed—literally shrieked— like it had a soul. More burst from the walls like vines, aiming for Kali.

She didn’t recoil.

Her shadows launched upward, shredding the first wave. She moved fast, brutally, and silently. The air shimmered with sigil residue.

Irina flanked her, firing enchanted bullets into the threads’ cores.

Lev reached Silas. Cut the sigil.

The rot hissed.

Silas crumpled.

Kali caught him. It wasn’t the weight of his body that crushed her. It was what they’d done to him.

And everything in her broke.

Her breath locked, and her knees hit the stone. Her joints screamed, and the magic inside her surged to protect, wild and messy and cracked.

But she held him.

His skin was ice. His mind… shredded.

But he breathed.

Barely.

Kali looked up. Her voice went low. Feral.

“They infected him. ”

Astraeus growled. "Then we burn everything."

Kali stood.

And the shadows obeyed.

Later — Vault Containment

Back at the Vault, Silas lay cocooned in containment wards, magic pulsing softly around him.

Kali didn’t rest.

She stared at the Spiral sigil carved into the bone Irina extracted from his thigh.

It matched the one in her dream.

The Spiral Mouth wasn’t just spreading.

It was sending messages.

And Kali was listening.

She whispered to Astraeus, “No more waiting.”

Astraeus rumbled back, calm and lethal.

"No more mercy."