Page 9 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE SIGIL AND THE STORM

Kali’s Emotional State: Controlled on the surface. But beneath? The sigil burned. Her blood felt rewired. Her mind stretched thin. She wasn't unraveling—she was becoming something else.

P

ain throbbed in her palm like a second pulse. The sigil glowed silver, embedded deep beneath the skin as if it had always been there—a loop, a knot, a braid of starlight etched by something not born of this world.

Her breath hitched. Her magic recoiled. And her dragon, Astraeus roared. It wasn’t a sound, it was a shockwave through her spine.

The Vault trembled. Shadows trembled. A low thunder cracked through her skull.

"He touched you," Astraeus snarled, his voice laced with fury and fear. "That thread-born thing touched your soul. Kali—this is not a bond. It’s a claim."

And for a heartbeat, something older than memory flickered behind her eyes—a battlefield not of this world, blood sinking into threads she couldn’t name. Pain she hadn’t earned in this lifetime. But carried still.

Kali staggered to her feet, gripping the edge of the stone table. The air around her sparked and shimmered, her shadow magic trying to lash out, find the intruder, burn the mark away .

But it didn’t fade.

And that terrified her more than the pain.

“I didn’t give him permission,” she whispered.

"No," Astraeus growled. "But part of you wanted to be seen. And now he’s seen everything."

The Vault doors creaked open. Irina entered like a storm in boots and steel.

Her silver eyes narrowed instantly. “What the hell happened?”

Kali lifted her palm. The sigil pulsed in answer.

Irina didn’t blink. “That’s Threadborn magic.”

Astraeus spat fury in Kali’s mind. "She should have stayed out. I should’ve stopped you. The Vault wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready."

“I had to know,” Kali said aloud, her voice steady despite the tremble in her hands. “It was calling me.”

Irina tossed a file on the prep table. “And while you were answering mystery calls, Azareal just made a move. East End wards are holding, but barely. He’s spreading Spiral Mouth rot beneath the surface—using sigils that look almost identical to that.” She jabbed a finger at the mark.

Her throat tightened. The glow didn’t dim. It wasn’t just a mark—it was a brand. A scar laid by fate, not by blade. What terrified her most wasn’t the pain… it was the permanence.

“They’re not the same,” she said. “This was… different. ”

Irina arched a brow.

“Then let’s pray to your dragon that it stays that way.”

Astraeus was already coiling tighter inside her. His fury had chilled into fear, and Kali could feel it: that protective, ancient instinct. The same one that had cradled her through her first flare. The same one that kept her from jumping off the balcony the night her parents died.

"I should scorch the threads from the world," he hissed. "He marked you like a beast. And I let him. I saw it coming, and I doubted myself."

“You didn’t let him,” she whispered, closing her hand into a fist. “I did.”

Irina cut in. “The sigil isn’t fading. That means it’s not just symbolic. It’s active. Binding, maybe. Or watching.”

Kali locked eyes with her. “Then we dissect it. Quietly. No word gets out. If the Vampire Court or Crimson Thorns catch wind that an unknown Threadweaver has tagged me, we’ll have more than rumors to kill.”

Irina nodded once. “Already handled. I’ve got Lucian under surveillance. And…”

She hesitated.

Kali raised an eyebrow.

Irina exhaled. “There’s been a Spiral Mouth sighting. Not near the syndicate. Not even in the city.”

Kali’s pulse stilled. “Where? ”

Irina’s voice was low.

“Silas. He’s gone dark.”

The shadows around Kali froze.

Astraeus exploded inside her.

"NO."

The roar was a shockwave. Her coat flared. Her sigil burned. Her heart thundered.

Kali didn’t wait.

“I want a trace. Now. Use everything. Every channel. Every whisper. If they’ve touched him—”

Irina nodded. “I know.”

Kali turned toward the door, her shadows crawling up her arms like armor.

“I’m going to burn whoever touched him from the inside out.”

Astraeus growled like a storm breaking chains. "And I will help."

The Spiral Mouth had crossed a line.

And Kali was about to redraw the map in blood.

Kali didn’t speak when she entered the compound's east wing. She didn’t have to, and she needed a minute.

They already knew… .

Tiger, her brindle boxer, was the first to appear—tail stiff, ears flat. He paced like a sentry, flanking her with eyes narrowed toward the hallway shadows.

Next came Spike, the long-haired Chihuahua with more attitude than muscle. He scurried between her boots, trembling not with fear but fury—tiny rage distilled into fur.

She kept walking.

Then came the quiet breath beside her….

Nickel, her blue-nosed pitty, pressed gently into Kali’s thigh as if she could feel the marrow-deep flare still cracking Kali’s joints. The same dog who had once walked beside her when she could only crawl. When the pain from her illness had been a weight even her magic couldn’t lift.

Nickel moved slowly, always in sync with her.

Her breath hitched.

Kota, her German Rottweiler, appeared next, silent, calculating, tail a slow pendulum of warning. He took up position beside Tiger, scanning the corridor ahead like the general he’d become.

And finally, Megan, her fluffy golden doodle, trotted up with soft eyes and a fierce heart. She nudged Kali’s hand once, then again, nose cold, gentle, insistent.

“I’m okay,” Kali whispered. But it was a lie, and they knew it.

They made space for her to sit.

She dropped to the hallway bench, wincing as fire lanced up her back, and leaned into Nickel’s warmth while Megan curled against her legs.

This wasn’t comfort .

It was a ritual.

The dogs didn’t just love her.

They guarded her soul.

The flare pulsed in her ribs like a secret.

Some wounds, Astraeus once told her, weren’t born of flesh, but thread. Carried across lives. Etched so deep, no magic could ever cleanse them.

And in the silence between breath and magic, the shadows whispered something she didn’t want to hear.

She was running out of time.

The soft pad of massive claws echoed down the corridor.

Vaerkyn emerged from the shadows.

He had once belonged to her grandfather.

A creature of flame and fang, Vaerkyn hadn’t just protected the estate—he became part of it. Blood-sworn. Death-marked. Bound to the Branche de Lune legacy.

His void-dark fur shimmered with faint embers, molten red eyes tracking Kali like she was the moon his orbit depended on.

For decades, he and his twin, Virelle, patrolled the gates together until the Spiral corruption tore Virelle apart during the Sigil War.

Vaerkyn never left the ruins .

Not until Silas found him, bent close, and whispered a single command:

Protect her.

And Vaerkyn had obeyed.

Without hesitation. Without mercy.

And so he had.

He waited, silent and eternal, until the day Kali stepped into her grandfather’s ring of power. Until the day her soul called him by name.

Eight feet of muscle, smoke, and nightmare. His void-black fur shimmered with faint embers, his molten red eyes tracking Kali like she was the moon his orbit depended on. A low rumble vibrated through the floor as he stopped in front of the pack.

Tiger bristled—just for a breath.

Kota let out a single warning huff.

Vaerkyn stared, molten eyes burning into hers. For a breath, something flickered there too—recognition. Not just her magic, but of the old wound she carried, the fracture that threaded through every life she touched.

Then he lowered his massive head.

It was Spike who made the first move. The tiny Chihuahua sniffed once, let out a grudging yap, then touched his nose to Vaerkyn’s paw.

The hellhound didn’t flinch .

Nickel pressed close to Kali’s side, and Megan moved to flank her other shoulder as Vaerkyn stepped forward, stopping inches from the bench.

The pack parted.

Vaerkyn sat.

The hallway, for a breath, felt like a church.

And Kali? She exhaled.

“Guess that settles it," she murmured. "Family, then.”

IRINA’S POV — Watching the Crown Crack

Kali hadn’t flinched.

That was what haunted Irina more than the sigil. More than the Spiral surge. More than the confirmation that Silas was gone.

She’d watched the footage again—frame by frame—expecting a stutter, a breath, a blink. Something.

But there wasn’t one.

Kali hadn’t just accepted the mark.

She’d absorbed it.

Irina stared at the monitor as the final still froze: the glow under Kali’s skin bright enough to silhouette the bones beneath. Her magic should’ve rejected it. Screamed. Burned.

Instead, it coiled around it like recognition.

Irina didn’t like not knowing. She was the one who filled in the gaps, the one who caught Kali before she fell, the one who stabbed problems before they had time to multiply.

But she couldn’t stab this .

Couldn’t shield her from this.

Whatever Thorne had done… it changed the rhythm of Kali’s shadows. Made them listen.

And gods, Irina hated how much that scared her.

Because if Kali was starting to glow from within—not break, not burn, but glow—then maybe this wasn’t corruption.

Maybe it was evolution.

And what the hell was she supposed to do with that?

She rubbed a thumb under her eye, smearing liner she didn’t remember applying. Then opened the last encrypted channel to Silas.

No flair. No flourish. Just one line:

She’s changing. If you’re alive, say something. If not, tell me how to kill what’s coming.

She hit send.

Then leaned her head back against the war room wall and whispered to no one,

“You told me to protect her. But you never told me what to do if she stopped being her.”

LEV’S POV — The Thread I Didn’t Tie First

Lev sat on the edge of Kali’s weapons bench, spinning a dagger between his fingers.

It had once been hers .

So had the chair she no longer sat in. So had the city they’d painted red together.

Now?

Now her shadows bent differently. Her voice held something threaded through it. Something he couldn’t reach.

The sigil was still on her hand. Still glowing. Still his—Thorne’s.

Lev would’ve carved it out of her skin himself if it hadn’t scarred her worse.

Not because he was jealous.

Because he knew what Threadborn magic could do.

What it demanded.

What it took.

He’d seen men unravel from the inside because of sigils like that. Not always because of pain. Sometimes because of want.

And if Kali wanted?

If she started to want Thorne, or the Spiral, or whatever path her power was dragging her toward?

Lev would follow her.

But he’d hate every step of the way.

Not because she didn’t need him .

Because she wouldn’t let herself want him back.

He stood, walked to the vault door, and pressed his palm against the black steel.

You didn’t flinch, he thought.

Then, softer: But God’s, I wish you had.

ASTRAEUS’S POV — The Shadow That Knew Her First

The shadows had always answered to him.

Before the blood. Before the bond. Before she named herself queen and wore her pain like prophecy.

He was the first to feel her scream in the womb.

The first to whisper stay when the world tried to end her before she began.

And now… she was slipping.

Not from power, not from purpose, but from him.

Astraeus coiled in the folds of unspace, the hollow between magic and memory—watching her blood pulse with borrowed light. That sigil didn’t belong in her. Not because it was Thorne’s.

But because it wasn’t earned.

Kali had bled for every inch of her power. Scar by scar. Spell by spell. Choice by choice .

And now the Thread had marked her like some divine inheritance?

As if she hadn’t clawed her way here herself?

It enraged him.

But more than that, it terrified him.

Because her soul had whispered yes.

Just once.

Just enough.

And that meant the Spiral had heard her.

Astraeus pressed against the edge of her ribcage like breath held too long. He wanted to roar. To shake the world. To rip the thread from her palm and burn it into ash across the stars.

But he couldn’t.

Not without breaking her.

She doesn’t need a god, he thought, fury choking his light.

She needs a gravekeeper. A blade. A voice she’ll listen to when no one else dares.

And if that meant becoming something less than he was—so she wouldn’t forget who she’d always been, then so be it.

He’d burn quieter.

Until the day she needed the storm again.