The earth lost its honesty beneath me. It no longer held; it folded and slid away, like sand swallowing the shore.
You are the echo of my last breath, the blade they failed to bury. They branded you to keep you quiet. Your mother taught you quiet to keep you alive.
Flashes of a stone table. Hands pinning. The knife. The symbol burning into bone.
My throat tore with an old sound—half scream, half chant—that I didn’t recognize.
When the world forgets balance again, she will rise—not in wrath, but in silence. You are not his. Not theirs. Not even mine. You are yours. And that is what they fear most—oath-makers, kings, even goddesses. The unowned do not obey as commanded.
The dark around me thickened.
I lifted my head. My eyes burned. My breath found a ragged rhythm. The four figures held their posts—guardian or ghost, I couldn’t tell.
Her voice cut through, bright and inevitable:
You are the one who remembers. Silence in your blood—the Veil’s hush answers your hand. Shadow in your bones—you can walk between what’s seen and what’s sworn. You were never meant to serve the Veil, only to unmake what binds it.
Far behind that chorus of the old world came my name again. This time, Malachi.
The world slammed back.
Sound erupted—trees groaning, leaves rustling, breath, footfalls, shadows moving not just through the forest but through me. I clapped my hands to my ears, but it did nothing. The noise lived in my blood.
“Aurelia—”
I staggered. Edges blurred. Light bent. Shadows split.
Hands—warm, solid—caught my arms. “Hey,” Malachi said, low and firm. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. The trees were too loud. Something feral in me ached to answer.
He didn’t let go. He yanked me tight against him, one arm banded around my waist, the other cradling my skull like he could hold back whatever I was becoming, and dragged us behind a fallen wall. An arrow whistled where we’d stood.
He kept me pinned to the stone, his body a shield, his voice at my ear. “Breathe. Here. With me. You’re safe.”
I didn’t believe it. The power in me wasn’t quiet anymore.
His arm stayed cinched at my waist. His fingers dug into my side—firm, deliberate—an anchor. I felt the faint memory of his near-kiss at the edge of my mind, the question of lips and the way he’d waited when I pulled away. That restraint steadied me now as surely as his hold.
Footsteps.
Lysara broke the brush first, hair wind-tossed, blades sheathed. Santiago stumbled after, hand to his ribs, eyes wide and raw.
“You all right?” Lysara crouched, voice quick.
“I—yes,” I said, though my hands still shook against the stone. “Where’s Gabriel?”
They both turned. My stomach dropped.
“He was just behind us,” Santiago said, voice cracking as his boots hit the ground.
A hiss cut through the clearing, steel-silent and impossibly quick. Another arrow found purchase in Santiago’s throat before I could even blink.
He staggered back, one hand clapping at his throat, fingersslick with red. The world narrowed to the wet, ragged sound he made—half curse, half choke. His eyes went wide, shot through with scarlet, terror, and fury. Blood spilled over his lips, painting his teeth black in the dim light. His jaw worked like he wanted to spit defiance, but all that came out was a bubbling gasp.
“No—” Lysara screamed, the sound raw and ragged. Her hair rose as if a storm had taken hold of it, each strand lifting, then whipping outward like bloody banners. Santiago clawed at the arrow’s shaft, blood bubbling between his fingers as he fell to the ground.
Three figures stepped from the treeline, human enough at first glance—tall shoulders, long limbs—but too smooth, too wrong in the joints. Their faces were suggested by shadow, mouths too wide, eyes like empty pocks. Behind them, four more silhouettes peeled out from behind trunks, lithe as smoke. They closed in.