Page 20 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

Wren

T he river doesn’t listen to me. Again.

I stand ankle-deep at its edge, eyes locked on the slow-moving current, and I will it to shift.

To rise or twist or shudder. I picture the water splitting sideways, just a few feet.

I picture the current stalling out completely.

I imagine it bending just enough to prove that something inside me is tied to the earth like the display of powers days ago.

Yet nothing happens. The river babbles along like it hasn’t heard me at all, or if it did, it found me unworthy of responding to.

I drag my hands through my hair, pushing it back from my face with a growl of frustration.

“Why do you suddenly hate me?!” I scream at the offensive water.

The sky is too bright, the wind too calm, and the ground too quiet. Everything around me is soft and peaceful, and it makes me want to scream.

It’s been days since the meeting and the earth split around me…days since the world felt like it answered me.

I’ve tried everything. The trees. The dirt. The wind. I’ve stood barefoot in every patch of ground within close walking distance. I’ve whispered, shouted, and begged to no avail.

No stir. No hum. No answer.

It feels like whatever power moved that day doesn’t want anything more to do with me.

And yet–I feel it, still. The pressure of a weight I can’t name, humming like a constant thread in my mind, telling me I should be making progress.

Footsteps crunch behind me, and I don’t have to turn to know it’s him, the scent of him floating on the wind to me. Sharp cedar, like a freshly chopped tree.

Torryn doesn’t speak at first as I turn in the river to stare at him. He stops a few paces from me on the edge of the bank and waits, arms crossed and an expression carved from patience I don’t currently have the grace to appreciate.

“You’ve been in the river for hours,” he finally says, voice low.

“Maybe I like being here,” I counter gruffly while crossing my own arms.

There’s a pause. Then, “You’re yelling at the river. I don’t think that’s a sign of enjoying yourself, Wren.”

I grimace as my eyes fall to the river. “She’s ignoring me, so I thought I’d try to wake her up.”

He bends down to roll up his pants to his knees before wading into the river. He doesn’t come as deep as I am, merely wades nearby in the shallow edge.

“You can’t force yourself to understand,” he says quietly. “You’ll remember who and what you are with time.”

My throat tightens.

“I don't have time,” I snap, feeling my unease growing as a visceral tightness in my chest. “I’m doing everything I can to–”

“Wren, take a breath.” His voice is steady as he cuts me off. “That’s the problem. You’re trying to brute-force something that I don’t think can be forced. It’s just adding to your frustration.”

I glance at him sharply, the sunlight catching on the planes of his face. His golden eyes are softer now as I force myself to take a deep breath.

My hands drop to curl into fists in the flowing water.

He’s right, but it doesn’t change the heavy weight of impending doom I feel.

“I feel it, Torryn,” I whisper. “Something is coming. Something is wrong . I don’t know what it is, but it’s close. I feel it but I can’t explain why. ”

Torryn is quiet for a long moment, the current curling around his shins. A crow calls in the trees behind us, distant and sharp, followed by the low rustle of branches shifting overhead. The sky presses in–too open, too blue, like it’s pretending nothing is wrong.

“There was a…skirmish.”

“Where?” I ask, the word rushed out in a quick breath as my pulse quickens with the news.

“Vampire territory,” he says hesitantly. “South Carolina border.”

The sound of the river dulls beneath the roar in my ears as my stomach tightens. “Riven’s region.”

Torryn nods once, the movement stiff. “Yeah.”

My shoulders slump forward. The water feels colder as I ask softly, “Were there casualties?”

He hesitates briefly, as if mulling over how to word his response. “Some nests were caught while they were sleeping.” A pause. “They weren’t expecting a coordinated hit from small teams like that all over the edge of the state. We blindly assumed humans would always move in large, brute forces.”

My lungs don’t seem to know what to do…pull tight, hold, let go. I take a shallow breath that doesn’t help at all.

“And Riven?” The question falls out in a whisper, sharp and uninvited. “Is he– ”

“He’s fine,” Torryn cuts in before I can finish. “Nothing in this world could take out that bastard.”

The knot in my chest doesn’t loosen entirely. I press my palms flat to the river’s surface, focusing on the lapping against my skin in an attempt to anchor the tremble that’s started in my hands.

“I knew something was wrong,” I murmur as my eyes track the fish swimming past me in a school. “I didn’t know what it was or where, but…it’s been building for days. I could feel it.” My voice cracks, quiet and uneven. “Like something inside me was bracing.”

He doesn’t speak.

The current slips between my fingers, cool and steady, unbothered by my unraveling.

“I don’t know why I knew,” I whisper. “I don’t understand how I could feel that.”

The sun breaks through the trees above us in streaks of gold and white, catching the edges of the water, painting my skin in fractured light. It does nothing to warm me.

Torryn takes a breath. “Maybe you don’t have to understand it yet. We’re still quietly inquiring with all the factions and with those we trust, to see if we can find any answers for you.”

He watches me, unreadable, but his presence is still solid, still steady. My unmovable mountain.

It’s only been days since I saw the other kings, yet a restlessness inside of me stretches wider the longer I go without seeing them.

It’s like life is suddenly quiet without Sylvin’s dramatics, Riven’s heavy presence, and Azyric’s dry remarks.

It’s a silence I can’t quite make peace with, and in that silence, my questions have only multiplied.

Are they alright? Would I know if something happened to any of them?

I try not to let that last thought settle too long, because the truth is I don’t know what ties me to them, or why that tether feels like it’s tightening.

A breeze pulls through the trees on either side of the river, carrying the scent of pine and wet grass and rustling the leaves in a soft hush.

I shouldn’t feel like this about them when I hardly know them. I shouldn’t care if they’re safe.

The water shifts around me suddenly, like something disrupts the current deep beneath the ground. The pulse of it beneath my feet moves with quiet certainty, curling up my calves. Soft pricks to the soles of my feet startle me, as if the earth doesn’t agree with me, or is calling me a liar.

Should I care? Are they important to my journey?

The pricks fade, leaving the rush of water flowing unbothered once again.

Warmth returns to my body as the truth settles, and I fight the soft smile teasing the corners of my lips.

Each one of them is tied to something in me I can’t name but feel more with every breath I take .

Maybe I shouldn’t fight that. Maybe this is the earth telling me I need to see them. To understand each of them and their people. To stand in the places they’ve built and are willing to bleed for.

Perhaps that’s why standing still for too long in one spot has built a restlessness within me, as much as I find beauty in the shifters’ way of life.

My throat tightens at the thought of having to admit that to Torryn, but I need to see the others.

I draw in a slow breath, the kind that feels too shallow at first, like my lungs aren’t sure they want to hold anything at all.

My eyes slowly lift to meet his golden ones.

He’s given me so much of himself these past few days.

Openness and patience. Inviting me into their faction like I’d always belonged here.

Challenging himself to give me honest answers, despite them grating against his deep-seated issues with the other factions.

I know I’m about to test all of that as the words form slowly on my lips.

“I think…” My voice is low, the sound of it hesitant. “Would you be willing to send a message to the others?”

His body stills, just slightly.

“To invite them here,” I clarify, unable to keep the slight wince from my face. “For dinner or something like it.”

The pause that follows isn’t hostile, just heavy .

The river moves around us, lazy and slow, as though it has all the time in the world.

“I know you don’t trust them,” I add, carefully. “I’m not asking you to change that. Just to let them in briefly.”

I don’t say the rest. I don’t tell him how much I need to see them with my own eyes. How the ache in my chest won’t let go until I do.

Yet I think he hears the unspoken words anyway.

He sighs, low and resigned.

“I’ll send it,” he says finally. “One meal, tonight. That’s all they get.”

Relief trickles in, not enough to lift the pressure from my chest entirely, but enough to let me breathe again.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

He looks over at me then, golden eyes catching the light like they’re built to hold it.

“I say that as if I could deny any future requests,” he rumbles, “but I’m beginning to think I can’t deny you anything.”

I don’t answer that. I don’t know how.

Instead, I wet my dry lips and smirk. “So, does that mean you’re cooking?”

His expression shifts immediately, narrowed in mock offense. “Absolutely not.”

Before I can offer a retort, his arm sweeps out and sends a splash of river water directly into my chest .

I gasp, staggering half a step back, soaked and sputtering. “You did not.”

He grins and steps deeper into the river. “Give me your worst, Wren.”

Water arcs between us in a flurry of revenge, and for a few long moments, I forget the weight I’m carrying.

***

By the time the sun begins its descent, smoke curls upward from the firepit in thin spirals, carrying the scent of roasted meat and herbed root vegetables into the trees.

The pack lands are quiet around us, the rest of the shifters giving us space without needing to be told. Whether it’s respect for Torryn, or caution around the kings he told them were coming through their pack link, I’m not sure. Maybe both.

I shift my weight, brushing damp strands of hair back from my face, and listen to the distant hush of the forest.

They should be here soon.

A flicker of static crawls along the edge of my skin. The kind of awareness that doesn’t come from sound or sight. The air stills, the rustling leaves pause, and the hush shifts from an easy quiet to something heavily charged .

Sylvin steps into the clearing like the breeze itself carried him in.

Torryn mutters beside the firepit, voice low but not quiet enough to miss. “This may be the first and last time he ever arrives before the rest.”

A nervous laugh bubbles out of me as I watch his long legs eat up the distance between us.

I may not know him as well as the others, but the intrigue and desire to change that rears itself in my mind the second I watch his signature smirk fill his handsome face.

“I see I’m early,” he says, gliding forward to stop just in front of me with a bow. “But I missed my little echo far too much to be fashionably late this time.”

For once I don’t correct him, finding a warmth stirring within me at the familiar nickname.

My chest tightens at the words that feel both ridiculous and sincere all at once. His light-blond hair is slicked back and catches the last of the light fading in the sky as he stands back to his towering height.

The air thickens once more, pulling tight against my mind. I’m not the only one, apparently, as all of our gazes shift to the edge of the forest.

Smooth and deliberate in every step, Riven appears.

After witnessing his speed previously, I know he’s enjoying being watched in his slow approach.

His dark shirt is open at the throat and the sleeves are rolled just enough to show the corded strength in his forearms. His red eyes glow faintly even in the fading light, twin embers sweeping across the space until they find me.

He holds my gaze with that same impossible intensity that always makes it feel like I’m the only thing he sees.

My breath hitches as he grows near. A part of me demands I go to him now and inspect every part of him to ensure Torryn’s words were correct and that he’s unharmed from the skirmish on his lands.

The second he stops in front of me and tilts his head, his eyes tracking every detail of my face, I lose what little restraint I was holding onto.

I step forward and throw my arms around his torso.

His frame is solid, larger than I remember. He hesitates just for a breath before his arms sweep around me. One hand settles low on my back and the other presses between my shoulder blades, palm wide and anchoring.

His voice, when it comes, is low and rough, and devastatingly soft. “I missed you too, darling.”

I let out a shaky exhale into his shirt, everything in me loosening at once. The worry, the pressure, the not knowing, it eases under his touch like the body finally remembering how to breathe.

Sylvin groans dramatically from the seat he’s taken near the fire.

“Well, that’s just rude. Where was my embrace, little echo? I bathed and everything.”

Riven’s lips brush the top of my head. “She has excellent taste, therefore it doesn’t include you.”

“More like questionable priorities,” Sylvin sighs. “I had a poem prepared and everything, but now I’m not sure if you deserve it, little echo.”

I manage a laugh against Riven’s chest. When I pull back to look at him, his tender gaze lingers on mine and I wonder if he’s ever shown this side of himself to anyone else.

We ease back toward the fire, the three of them settling into their places as I choose to stand, waiting for Azyric.

I wonder how his council is treating him and if Ilyria is supporting him with her humor and warmth the way she did for me.

An ache grows in my chest as the truth hits me: I miss them both.

A subtle tension begins to grow the longer I stand, pacing back and forth.

Minutes pass and the remaining glow from the setting sun begins to fade.

I scan the line where the forest thickens, expecting to see a flurry of shadows. A flicker of silver eyes staring through the growing dark.

But there’s nothing.

The fire crackles and a bird trills.

Torryn stretches his long legs out. Riven drums two fingers against his thigh. Sylvin picks a wildflower from the grass and twirls it.

We wait.

Long enough for my breath to slow into a tight coil in my chest.

Long enough to know he’s not just late…he’s not coming.

Azyric didn’t answer the summons.

I turn to stare at the place where he should be sitting and his absence stings.

I don’t know why it matters this much, but it does.