Page 42 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

Wren

T he early morning air feels too still for what’s coming.

There are no birds singing to greet the rising sun. No drifting breeze to combat the growing heat that accompanies dawn.

I hear clipped voices from the surrounding factions as orders are relayed for what I feel like is the tenth time. It feels too loud, grating at my ears as an anxious energy fills me.

I stand in the middle of this chaos, willingly, and yet all I can wonder as dawn greets us is if I made the wrong decision.

Torryn reaches me first, jaw set and eyes bright with steady protectiveness. His palm cups my cheek with a softness that shouldn’t exist in a man ready to murder .

“Stay hidden in your spot, sweetheart. Don’t move unless you have to.”

His lips press against mine briefly, but they’re full of a promise between us to return safely to one another. Then he’s gone, disappearing into the trees with his shifters like the forest calls them home.

Sylvin arrives next, his Winter Court leathers laced in silver thread, hair tied back, eyes wild with battle-readiness. Still, he smiles.

“If I die, little echo,” he murmurs, brushing his nose to mine, “tell the world I went down looking fantastic.”

His kiss is soft and fleeting, and when he pulls back, there’s a shadow in his expression as he takes in my sullen silence. “It’ll be okay, Wren. Whatever happens.”

Then he vanishes with his fae court through swirling portals.

Riven lingers at my side then, and I feel his searching gaze before I turn to look at him. I wet my lips as my fear of the unknown ramps up. His hands are warm when they settle on either side of my face, thumbs brushing along my jaw.

“Darling, if you keep looking like you’re a second away from crumbling, I fear I’ll never be able to leave your side,” he says finally. “What’s going through your mind?”

I swallow the lump rising in my throat as I glance back out at the looming human fortress.

In a matter of minutes, everything will change. Blood will soak into the ground as hearts stop beating–on both sides of this battle.

“It’s just the earth’s nervous energy, I think,” I offer, unsure of what else to say before I turn my focus back to him.

“Promise me if it’s too much to watch, or if any of the fight draws near you, that you will retreat,” he pleads.

I nod and his lips descend on mine. The kiss is deeper, with his fangs brushing along my bottom lip, but it ends quickly. He hesitates a breath longer, then turns and strides toward the front line where the vampires wait in formation. They all disappear in a flash of movement.

Azyric appears next to me without warning, shadow forming into flesh just ten feet away. He doesn’t come close or speak.

My lips part and my feet beg to move toward him, but no words or movement come. I can’t be the one to always try to mend the gap.

His silver eyes find mine before he offers a single nod.

The ache that coils in my chest is sharp as he disappears, leaving me alone in the field, but I swallow it down and take a step toward the spot I chose as my vantage point last night with the help of Torryn’s eyes in the sky.

This is happening, whether I want it to or not, and I must bear witness.

The rising sun spills faintly across the field as I dart toward the edge of the treeline, but it does nothing to warm the dread curling in my belly. The moment my boots press into the thick trees in a brisk jog, my body grows heavy as the earth stirs beneath me, though not in welcome.

I feel a trembling thread of resistance thrumming under the surface like a warning.

I close my eyes, placing my hand against the gnarled bark of an oak. The vibration that greets me there travels up my arm, winding through my chest until it nests behind my sternum.

My breath catches at the weight of emotion that slams into me. The truth simmers through the earth’s core and into me.

The earth doesn’t want this battle to happen and it grieves already.

When my eyes open, I whisper to the tree, “Tell me what I’m supposed to do to stop this and I’ll do it.”

It doesn’t answer me, and my stomach churns with uncertainty.

I press on deeper into the shadows of the forest until I reach the edge facing the fortress.

I crouch low between a twisted root system and a cluster of shrubs that offer some concealment.

I’m still close enough to see the top edge of the structure’s wall through the tangle of branches.

Close enough to hear the guards pacing along the parapets, their boots scraping against stone.

Above me, leaves rustle in the breeze just before the first howl cuts through the air.

My chest constricts as it rises long and sharp from the east–Torryn’s side of the attack. The answering chorus follows seconds later, haunting and making my skin pebble.

It’s beginning.

Another beat passes and then the sky lights with magic I know is from the fae.

I flinch as violet light arcs over the treetops, pulsing from the south where the vampires advance with them. Screams rise almost immediately, shrill with terror.

I watch the two guards on the wall shout at each other, their voices overlapping as panic spreads like fire.

“We’re under attack!”

“East wall and south–shit! They’re flanking us!”

“Get on the comms and call for backup, now!”

My pulse quickens, the breath catching sharply in my lungs as I lean forward instinctively, needing to see if they’re successful, but then he appears.

Azyric’s form materializes atop the wall like he was summoned by the rising pitch of panic, shadows knitting into flesh. He glides toward the nearest guard before they even see him.

I don’t breathe as the first neck snaps with a clean, sickening crack–bone giving way under the strength of a single hand and shadows.

The second soldier turns just in time to register him, mouth parting in warning, but it’s already too late.

Azyric’s arm snakes out, shadows trailing from his hands and rushing up the man’s body to smother his sounds.

As the shadows dissipate, the body crumples, lifeless.

Silence reclaims the wall.

His head lifts slowly, silver eyes scanning the treetops and then, almost impossibly, they find me. It’s just a moment, but it stirs the dread in my chest, wild and painful as the earth and I bear witness to his slaughter.

He disappears in a flicker of shadow and suddenly I can’t breathe. My hands lift to my chest as grief squeezes my heart in its grasp. The earth’s trembling force beneath my feet turns aching with sorrow.

A pulse erupts beneath me and I press a hand to it, feeling the force of it like something buried is trying to claw its way out.

My boots tremble against the forest floor as hairline fractures race outward from my hand.

I visualize the cracks before they appear, like I’ve conjured the exact spots without trying.

I stumble back from the fracture steadily splitting the ground as it reaches the stone fortress.

My eyes are wide as pain suddenly tears through the soles of my feet and up my spine.

I bite down on my lip hard as my head falls back, a scream building in my throat that I can’t release.

The trees above seem to sway without wind, their branches groaning like they’re bearing witness.

Silent tears fall from the corners of my eyes and into my hairline. As the vibrations from the ground race through me, I know it’s not just from me, but also the earth that is weeping.

I feel it in the marrow of my bones. In the sharp, sick twist of my gut and the way the air seems to thicken with every heartbeat.

No more , it seems to say. No more, no more, no more.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to give it.

I drop to my knees, fingers digging into the dirt like I can anchor myself, like if I just hold on tightly enough, I’ll understand.

“Please,” I beg softly.

But all I feel is sorrow reflecting back.

The earth doesn't stop trembling.

It’s no longer the subtle pulsing grief beneath my hands, but something wilder as panic surges through me. The roots around me twitch in place, soil pushing against my fingers like the land itself is trying to shove me backward.

The noise comes seconds later, distant at first and unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

The earth presses the answers into my mind.

Tires.

Engines.

The low snarl of machines built to carry weapons and the humans who operate them.

I push through a tangle of brush just enough to see through the shifting branches. A convoy barrels toward the base, massive armored vehicles kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. Their engines roar loudly enough to mask the screams tearing through the sky.

Humans hang from the edges with their shouldered weapons and helmets.

I freeze as one soldier climbs onto the top of the lead vehicle, movements swift and certain as he hoists something long onto his shoulder.

The earth forces the word into my mind just as it catches the light from the sun.

A missile launcher.

My heart stops as someone shouts, “Fire toward the wolves, now!”

A sharp burst of light fires from the launcher, and I can do nothing but watch.

My lungs seize, body frozen in place from my fear and helplessness. The impact is muted by distance, but I feel its impact through the shockwave that runs through the ground.

I force my eyes shut as a new sound echoes on the breeze, as if it purposefully needs me to hear.

The screams of the wolves are ripped from their throats in broken, splintered howls that scrape against my bones, like they’re trying to bury themselves beneath my skin.

The earth wails and I dig my nails into the ground as the machines in front of me continue to roll toward Torryn’s faction.

A raw, primal shriek pulses from the soil and surges upward through my knees, my spine, and into my skull, until the inside of my mind is nothing but pain.

There are no words or thoughts. Only that grief and agony, reverberating through me.

The forest tilts and swims around me, light bending at the edges of my vision as the scream becomes all-consuming.

Make it stop.

My breath falters, and it feels like the ground splits wide beneath me as I fall into the depths of it.

I’m adrift in the dark of my mind, untethered from the battle, from the forest, from the tremble of the earth beneath my knees. The world slips away as echoing voices rise from somewhere in the dark .

“Place the tether where the tipping point is strongest. Let the continent that stoked the fire be the one to face her judgment.”

“No legacy. No name. No future.”

My mouth opens, but no sound escapes as pain surges through my skull again–this time blinding and raw, enough to split me open from the inside. The scream catches in my throat, thick and burning, while light behind my eyes pulses brighter, flickering like stars in the night sky.

Tears spill down my cheeks, cutting through the cold that seeped into every part of me. I feel their warmth but can’t reach to wipe them away as the voices consume me again.

“She’ll find love, you know. Even without memory. The weaver is meant to seek out light in the darkness, if there is hope to be found.”

“If she does find love, let us hope she can say goodbye to it.”

The pressure rises, sharp and unbearable, until it finally breaks and I’m left gasping like I’ve crested from water determined to drown me.

In the hush that follows, everything I’ve been searching for comes wafting back to me.

I remember every word of my creators’ conversation.

Their fear, their hope, and their uncertainty of whether I could complete this mission .

My lips part as I gasp and the tears increase, the salty taste of them falling down my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth.

I remember who I am and what I was sent here to do.