Page 12 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

A TASTE OF MADNESS

Kali’s Emotional State: Focused. Dangerous. The spiral sigil wasn’t just a symbol—it was a map. And the further she followed it, the more she realized it was pulling her toward something ancient... and unholy.

B

ack to the flashback ……. Kali had been walking home from the corner store.

One second, she was thinking about the lemon candies she’d stolen—sweet, sharp, the only joy she’d stolen back that week.

She just hoped she could make it home before her mother noticed she was two minutes late.

Any delay meant punishment. And she still had dinner to cook.

The next second, she was screaming into the dark.

The man’s hand clamped over her mouth, dragging her toward the van with practiced force. The rain made everything slippery—her shoes, her limbs, the cheap plastic bag that slipped from her grip and scattered lemon candies across the pavement.

Her heart pounded. Her lungs burned. No one was coming.

Until someone did.

A figure stepped from the alley’s mouth—not stumbling, not running. Just there. Calm, coiled power in the shape of a man. His eyes glowed faint silver under the flickering streetlamp .

Silas didn’t yell. He didn’t ask questions. He moved.

The first man dropped without a sound, only the soft crunch of bone echoing into the alley. The second pulled a knife. Silas broke his wrist before the blade even glinted. Then, with a fluid pivot, he slammed him into the side of the van and dropped him like refuse.

The third—the one dragging Kali—turned too late.

Silas grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the van door with enough force to dent metal. “Let her go,” he said, voice quiet. Deadly.

The man didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

Silas twisted his arm until something popped. Then he pulled Kali into his coat, shielding her body with his own. She could feel the steady pounding of his heartbeat against her cheek—steady as the rain, steady as the vow he never spoke aloud. Unshaken. Unafraid.

“You’re safe now,” he whispered, brushing wet hair from her face. “You’re mine to protect.”

Kali didn’t cry. She couldn’t. But she held tighter, her fingers clutching his coat like it was armor and salvation all at once.

And from that moment on, she believed him.

Now — the ritual chamber.

Shadowlight writhed across blackglass walls, casting long, crooked reflections that never quite matched their owners. The spiral sigil they extracted from Silas shimmered in the air, projected by blood, by magic, and by something no one in the room wanted to name.

“It’s not just a binding rune,” Irina said, studying the spectral map. “It’s layered like a vault key. Interlocking curves, looping logic. The kind of magic that unravels the mind if you trace it too long.”

Kali didn’t look away. “Then don’t blink.”

A muscle twitched near her temple. Pain flickered through her spine, old scars protesting. Psoriatic arthritis flared when magic bent wrong—but Kali didn’t yield to it. She anchored herself in the pain.

The room smelled like iron and memory. Astraeus prowled the edge of her thoughts, his rage wound tight.

"It leads to a vault," he growled. "One, your grandfather sealed before you were born. One even I was forbidden from entering."

Kali’s breath caught for half a beat. “Why would he seal something even dragons feared? What did he see that made him bury it so deep, not even Astraeus could follow?”

Whatever it was, it wasn’t just locked.

It was hiding.

Kali’s jaw tightened, and a slow, deliberate breath escaped her. The sigil was a threat, but the vault behind it was something worse. 'Then we’re breaking the seal.

"Astraeus's voice dropped, low and lethal, the weight of his words seeping into her bones.

'It’s not a vault like the others, little shadow.

The Spiral Mouth is a wound, a little shadow.

Older than dragonkind itself. It doesn't just open doors. It devours them, and once it begins, it doesn’t stop.

It twists everything it touches. It rearranges ley lines, warps time. It infects bloodlines."

Kali’s breath hitched, the weight of his words pressing down on her chest like iron. She forced herself to breathe, to stay present. The Spiral Mouth wasn’t just a threat—it was an inevitability.

“Then how do we kill it?” She demanded, her voice like steel, sharp but laced with urgency.

Astraeus paused for a breath, his voice colder than before. “You can’t kill the Spiral Mouth. It devours—it rewrites. And if you fail, it will take you, piece by piece, until you’re nothing but a shadow of what you were.”

Kali’s stomach twisted, and for the first time, she felt the full weight of Astraeus’ words.

The Spiral Mouth wasn’t just an ancient threat—it was inevitable, and it was coming for her.

She’d never felt the real threat of the Spiral Mouth until now—its hunger, its insatiable hunger for everything.

She couldn’t stop it. She could only survive it. ”

Lev stepped into the circle, his jaw tight with frustration and concern. “You want to take a team?” His voice was low, holding a challenge and a plea.

If this is where he fell apart… maybe that’s why I was born different. To walk the same path. But burn a new one.

Kali hesitated, the weight of her decision pressing down on her. Her fingers brushed against the sigil again, feeling its pull, and for a fleeting moment, doubt gnawed at her resolve. But then, the shadows flickered, and her choice solidified. “No. I’m leading it. ”

You don’t have to lead it,” Lev said, his voice tight with something Kali couldn’t quite place. She saw it in his eyes—a flicker of something unspoken—but she didn’t stop. She was already stepping forward, her resolve stronger than any doubt he could voice.

She turned to Irina. “Prep enforcers. Only ones with shadow resistance and mind barriers. If this thing is alive, I want no cracks in the wall.”

Irina’s gaze softened for a moment—her loyalty to Kali evident—but she nodded and disappeared, the weight of their shared burden pressing on her shoulders.

Kali hated ordering others into something she hadn’t survived yet herself, but loyalty demanded risk. And this time, she couldn’t shield them all.

She looked back at the sigil. “You said it wasn’t just a binding?”

Irina’s thoughts echoed in Kali’s mind—not through comms but through their shared telepathic link. “Correct. It’s broadcasting. Like a beacon.”

Astraeus snapped in her skull. "Then it knows we're coming."

If she shattered under the Spiral’s call, she’d drag Astraeus with her—and they both knew it.

The shadows at Kali’s boots hissed, shifting with a life of their own. They responded to the sigil and to her, as if they could sense the storm gathering. They coiled tighter, eager for the violence to come.

“Good,” Kali whispered, her voice quiet but fierce. A flicker of a smile curved her mouth—not joy, but the sharpened edge of a blade preparing to strike. Let it come. Let them come.

Because the shadows weren’t just following the spiral anymore.

They were ready to bite back.