Page 20 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)
RESPECT CARVED IN BLOOD
Kali’s Emotional State: Fury sharpened to a blade. Her name isn’t just a warning anymore, it’s a weapon. She’s done asking for respect. Now she’s carving it into the world, one bloody step at a time.
T
he Hollow was too quiet.
Not the reverent kind of silence. Not peace. This was the kind of quiet that followed prophecy. The kind that buzzed under the skin and whispered: something has changed, and it’s already too late to stop it..
Steam curled around Kali’s body as she lay in the salt bath, every breath shallow, every movement an argument with pain.
Irina’s herbs burned like ash and gold in the water, laced for inflammation, sigil stabilizing, and whatever alchemy passed for emotional anesthesia these days.
None of it worked. The sigil still pulsed beneath the bandage wrapped around her collarbone, hot and red, and humming like it had plans of its own.
Her joints throbbed, familiar, grinding agony in her spine, wrists, and knees, but this was more than psoriatic pain.
This was the aftermath of a flare. Thread magic burn.
A bond awakened without consent and anchored in something older than choice.
She tilted her head back against the tile and closed her eyes .
She didn’t open her eyes. “Yes, and now I’ve got prophetic embroidery crawling across my ribs. Can’t wait to see what happens when he adds glitter.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I know.” She exhaled. “That’s why I’m making one.”
The dragon didn’t speak, but his anger coiled around her ribs like armor. Protective. Punishing. Ancient.
Astraeus growled low in her skull. “You should’ve called me,” he growled finally.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“You knew enough. You let him in.”
Her mouth twisted. “He didn’t knock.”
A moment of silence passed like thunder held back by force of will. Then: “You didn’t just open a door, Kali. You opened a vein.”
She didn’t answer because he was right. And because the water had gone still, the kind of stillness that made her want to scream.
The door cracked open.
Irina entered without ceremony, spell bag on her shoulder, war already in her posture, zero tolerance in her eyes. She slapped a suppression charm on the far wall, warding Astraeus from the room in a flash of kinetic blue, and let the silence settle like a judgment.
Kali didn’t move. “Treason or friendship? ”
Irina crouched beside the bath and started pulling vials from her bag. “You look like you went three rounds with a Thread god and forgot your safeword.”
“ Wasn’t my idea,” Kali muttered, curling her hand against her ribs. “But I did get a new tattoo and a spiritual identity crisis out of it. So that’s fun.”
Irina unscrewed a jar of salve and offered no smile. “You didn’t just get Thread-marked. You were rewritten.”.
Kali’s throat felt raw. “It wasn’t rewriting. It was… remembering,… Like he knew me. Like I knew him. Like something inside me had been waiting for that altar my whole life and didn’t tell me.”
“Loom Circle work,” Irina said flatly. “Old. Dangerous. Messy. He’s not weaving threads. He’s cutting them. Resealing you into something ancient.”.
Kali’s laugh was dry. “Well, at least I’m not boring.”
Irina’s hand hovered at the edge of the water. “Do you want to tell me what really happened in that vision, or should I let Lev storm in here and ask instead?”
Kali finally looked at her. “I saw him. Not just Thorne—I saw prophecy. And he was inside it. Or maybe I was inside him. It felt like my own magic recognized him. Like it craved him. Like a bond that had already happened... but in reverse.”
Irina’s face tightened. “And you didn’t fight it.”
Kali’s voice dropped. “I did. Until I didn’t.”
Silence again. Heavy. Thick with too much truth .
“Did he complete it?” Irina asked.
“No.” Kali wrapped her arms around her knees, water sloshing. “But he came close. And when I hit the floor… the Thread was still glowing. It’s not fading, Irina. It’s spreading.”
Irina stood and pulled a clean towel from her bag. “Then we cut it out before it finishes the bond.”
Kali rose from the bath slowly, body protesting every movement.
Pain lit her joints with electric heat, and she welcomed it.
At least it was real. Irina didn’t help her dress, and Kali didn’t ask.
She moved through the ritual like muscle memory, snapping her shadow-threaded leathers into place, binding the new sigil under gauze and grit, tightening her boots like she was anchoring herself to the world before it tore again.
“Where are you going?” Irina asked.
Kali paused at the door. Her dogs were already waiting, Nickel calm and pressed to the threshold, Spike tense, ears forward. Tiger paced behind them, as if the hallway offended him. Megan sat like a sentinel. Kota didn’t move, but his eyes were locked on her ribs.
And behind them, cloaked in smoke and silence, stood Vaerkyn. Watching..
She looked down at her hands. They didn’t shake.
She looked back at Irina..
“ To remind the Vampire Court that even frayed threads can still cut throats.”
She stepped into the hall, and her shadows followed. Ash and steel curled in her wake like incense. Behind her, Irina didn’t speak. She just nodded once and reached for her gun..
They wanted a warning. Kali would send them a legend instead.