I should argue. I do not.
Because she says it like a command and a care all at once, and the sensation that gives me is dangerously close to happiness.
The tunnelsunder Nytheria do not feel like the rest of Nytheria.
Above ground, the land breathes through leaves and moss and soft earth, its magic threaded through living roots. Below, everything changes. Stone replaces soil. Moisture clings to the air. The magic is older, less wild, more stubborn, like a sealed archive that resents being opened.
I move alone, because despite Amelia’s insistence, this is a place where one mistake can become burial. I do not bring a lantern. I do not need one. Shadow is native to me, and in these narrow corridors it curls around my senses like an old language.
My shoulder still bears the faint ache of old wounds, but my body feels… different today. Stronger in places I cannot name. The bond has altered the way power rests in me, deepening the reservoir, tightening the control. I am aware of it in the way I place my feet and listen to the air and taste the magic along the tunnel walls. This is not just Nytheria’s stone. It is Nytheria’s history.
If Vira is poisoning the ley network, she has to come here or send someone who can.
That someone will leave a trail.
I follow the faintest thread of disturbance, an unnatural slickness along one seam of rock, a residue that doesn’t belong to rootstone. It smells faintly of resin and metal, familiar now from Amelia’s analysis of the first poison. Dusk-bloom, carried into the land like a secret.
The trail is thin, but it is real.
It draws me toward an exit vent that opens near the outer perimeter, beyond the main coven grounds, where wards thin and guards become routine instead of sacred. It is the kind of place a traitor uses because no one expects treason to walk through the mundane.
I emerge under a stand of twisted yew trees, the air cooler, the forest quieter. The sky above is a pale afternoon, and for a moment I breathe in the clean scent of bark and damp earth and allow myself to think of Amelia again, of her in bed, hair loose, eyes bright with plans and defiance.
I am halfway through turning back toward the main path when the world changes.
There is a sound, small, sharp, almost lost in the wind, and then impact slams into my shoulder with enough force to drive me a step sideways. Pain blooms instantly, hot and deep. The shaft vibrates where it has struck, embedded near my collarbone.
An arrow.
Not Nytherian craftsmanship. The fletching is too tight, the shaft too clean, the enchantment too deliberate.
I reach for it instinctively and my fingers brush the wood. The magic on it bites back, a thin, cruel ward designed to punish tampering. Poison already spreads from the wound, racing along my veins like cold fire. My vision sharpens, then swims, the edges of the world flickering.
Professional. A hit meant to cripple fast, bind channels, not kill.
I twist toward the treeline, senses flaring, scanning for the shooter. The forest gives me nothing but shadows and birdsong.
Then my shoulder burns harder, and I feel the poison turn inward, aiming for conduits rather than flesh.
I take a step, and my knee tries to fold.
I catch myself against the trunk of a yew, breathing through my teeth, forcing my magic to clamp down on the spread. My control holds for a moment, but the toxin is designed for my kind. It recognizes Vrakken channels and moves through them with intimate efficiency.
I hate the respect I feel for whoever made it.
My hand tightens around the arrow shaft. I should break it and pull it free, but the warding will detonate deeper if I do it wrong, and I have no healer here.
Then the bond shifts. A surge of awareness snaps through it, and with it comes Amelia, her alarm like a blade drawn, her presence rushing toward me even before I send a thought.
“Zeidan!”
The word hits my mind with raw force, not spoken aloud, but threaded through panic and certainty.
I brace, breath coming shorter. I do not answer, because if I answer she will know how close this is to ending badly, and I refuse to feed her fear.
She finds me anyway.
Amelia crashes through the undergrowth with her cloak half-fastened, hair loose, eyes bright with terror she is trying to disguise as rage. The moment she sees the arrow, her face goes white.