Page 11 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

WHAT THE SHADOW SAVED

Kali’s Emotional State: Rattled. Relentless. The sigil burned behind her eyes. Silas wasn’t just an enforcer—he was hers. A tether to a past she tried not to remember. But the Spiral Mouth had touched him. And Kali would break whatever rules she had to in order to get answers.

T

he med-ward was sealed under ten layers of enchantments and three guards Kali didn’t recognize. That was Irina’s doing—tightening the net like a vice. Even the walls felt breathless.

Kali stalked in like she was walking into war because she was. Just not the kind anyone else could see.

Inside, Silas lay on the reinforced cot, pale, still, cocooned in shadow-barrier restraints keyed to her bloodline. But that wasn’t what stopped her breath.

It was the Spiral sigil carved into his chest.

Not ink. Not burn. Alive. Like it had grown from the marrow out. It pulsed—slow, venomous, wrong.

Astraeus snarled, fury crackling through her bones.

"That magic should not touch our blood. He was family. "

Kali’s pulse quickened. She stepped closer, shadows swirling around her like sentinels. The sigil burned brighter the nearer she came. It reacted to her, fed on her magic.

The air around her thickened with magic, the weight of it like an avalanche just waiting to fall.

“He is family,” she repeated, but the words felt heavy, almost foreign, as if she had to remind herself.

Her fingers trembled, and for the briefest moment, the walls of the med-ward seemed to close in around her, but she steadied herself.

A memory surged—hot, raw, uninvited.

Flashback: Age 9 — The Alley

Rain turned the street into glass. Her sneakers squeaked against it as she ran, heart hammering against lemon candy tucked in her pocket—stolen joy.

She never saw the man coming. A hand, too rough. A van door yawned open.

She screamed. No one came.

Except for him.

A shadow detached from the alley. Tall. Silent. Eyes like molten metal .

Silas didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He ripped the man away from her like paper. Then wrapped her in his coat like armor.

That was the first time Kali felt safe. The last time she believed anyone could save her.

Back in the present, the ache in her chest nearly buckled her knees.

“Why him?” she whispered.

Irina's voice came quietly from the far corner. “Because they knew what he meant to you.”

The sigil pulsed again—faster now. Reacting.

Kali stepped closer. Her fingers twitched once—rage, not fear. “Look at it. It’s responding to me.”

Astraeus hissed inside her mind: "He’s being used. A relay. A message. They want you to see it. They want you to come."

A burst of heat rippled up her arm as she pressed her palm to the sigil, her fingers curling into a fist to suppress the growing fury inside her. She could feel the sigil’s pulse vibrating under her skin, thrumming with an energy she hadn’t known existed.

The shadows flickered, more restless than ever, responding to her magic's agitation.

Her breath caught in her throat, and for a split second, she felt herself begin to unravel, the jagged edges of her control slipping .

"The sigil is alive," Astraeus’s voice thundered through her skull, cold and sharp, unlike the usual warmth of their connection. "It’s a signal. A trap."

The very air around her seemed to stretch, her skin buzzing with the magic, electric, hot, and suffocating.

Her chest tightened, heart pounding, as the sigil flared—then—

A scream. Inside her skull.

A male voice. Familiar.

"You can’t stop it. The Mouth opens. The price is already paid."

She staggered back, gasping. Pain lanced up her wrist into her shoulder, and the flare of her psoriatic arthritis flared violently, mixing with the magic's burn. The shadows recoiled and twisted across the room, like they couldn’t bear what was happening either.

The voice echoed—not in words now, but in the aftershock like it had torn something open inside her.

Kali clutched her arm, sinking against the cot’s edge, trying to breathe past the terror she refused to name. For a moment, her mind spiraled back to the alley. The dark. The helplessness. The cold grip of fear.

She wasn't that girl anymore.

But the Spiral wanted her to feel like she was.

Lev was already there, catching her elbow .

“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “But I’m about to be.”

She turned to Irina, voice like shrapnel.

“Prep the ritual chamber. I want that sigil mapped, dissected, mirrored, and cracked open like a goddamn bone. If it’s whispering—I want to know what it’s saying.”

Irina nodded. “And Silas?”

Kali looked back, throat raw. Her voice dropped.

“We protect him. With everything we’ve got.”

Astraeus rumbled in her mind, low and fierce. "As you protect us all."

Because the Spiral Mouth hadn’t just made a move.

It had touched her heart.

And Kali Branche de Lune didn’t lose what was hers.

She burned down kingdoms to keep it.