Chapter 86
[ 1,020 words ]
Chapter 87
Haiden
I’ve smelled death before. Fresh. Rotted. Burned. Torn apart in battle. I’ve seen what war does to bodies, to minds. But this? This is different. This is sick.
It’s not the scent of rot that makes my skin crawl. It’s the absence of life in a place that should be sacred. The cold that clings to the air even though the sun beats down overhead. The way the birds stopped singing. Levi and I follow the pull of magic through the overgrown brush. It’s stronger here, denser, like molasses dragging through my veins. Then we find it. A shallow dip in the earth. No stones. No markers. Just a circle of dead grass and a ring of blackened trees.
Levi drops to his knees before I can say anything. His hands are already glowing, threading through soil. I stay standing. I don’t want to kneel here. Not yet. Not until I know what I’m kneeling to.
Levi exhales hard, his brow furrowed. “There’s… so many p>
“How many p>
He swallows. “Too many. ”
I nod once and kneel beside him, pressing my palm to the earth. My magic reaches deep. Deeper than it should. It finds bone. Fabric. Cold metal cuffs. Chains. Children. Shackled in death. I clench my jaw. My throat burns, but I force myself to stay still. Then I hear…
“Help us,” she says. A girl, soft and sad. “We were the key, but she was the lock. ”
She. Envy. I jerk back, blinking hard.
“Did you hear that?” I ask Levi.
He nods slowly. “They were part of the spell. This was… a sacrifice for the spell. ”
That’s when I see it, carved into the base of a tree at the edge of the clearing. An ancient rune. I rise and move toward it, brushing moss away to reveal the full symbol. I’ve only seen it once before. What Envy showed us in her memories, beneath the packhouse. On the stone floor of the chamber, where they nearly turned Envy into something monstrous. I trace the lines, feeling the static rise under my fingers.
“Marcus,” I say, voice low. “He perfected something here. This was a testing ground p>
“For what?” Levi asks.
“For power, ” I answer. “For bringing down the veil. ”
The breeze shifts. A low hum rolls through the air. The spell here never died. It’s dormant. Slumbering. But it feels us.
Levi turns to me. “We need to mark this site. Get Elira and Madra here. Maybe even Felix p>
I shake my head. “Not yet. ”
“Haiden … ”
“I want to know what they were doing first. I want to see it. I want to understand it p>
He hesitates. “You want to understand Marcus p>
“No,” I whisper, staring into the heart of the grave, where a faint shimmer still dances across the soil like breath.
want to understand how to destroy him p>
Noah
I’ve never seen her like this. Focused. Quiet. Cold in a way that has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with purpose. Envy stands by the open map spread across the war table, her fingers tracing the familiar grooves of Tolaris‘ territory. Every angle accounted for. Every tunnel entrance is marked in blood–red ink. She’s not pacing. Not fidgeting. She’s a storm just before it breaks. And me? I can’t stop watching
ID
1:04 PM P P.
Chapter 87
her.
“I’ll go first,” I say instead.
Her eyes snap to mine. “No p>
“Yes,” I reply firmly. “You’re the key to all of this. If something goes wrong…We need you alive. I’m just the distraction p>
Her glare could burn down kingdoms. “You’re not just anything, Noah p>
The words settle in my chest like armor. Even now, even with all this weight pressing on us, she still fights for me.
She steps back and breathes out slowly. “We go together. And if you get caught doing something stupidly heroic, I’ll kill you myself. ”
A smirk curls at my lips. “ Noted p>
I take her hand in mine and we portal to the borderline of the Tolaris pack.
“You nervous?” I ask as we crouch near the tree line.
“No,” she answers honestly. “I’m ready p>
I believe her. This is more than revenge for her. It’s reclamation. Of the children. Of herself. Of whatever future they tried to steal from her.
“Do you remember the way it felt the last time we were here?” she asks as we move, silent through the woods.
“ Yeah,” I say. “Like the place was breathing p>
“It still is,” she whispers. “But this time, we’re not just walking into the dark p>
“No? ”
She glances back at me, a wicked light in her eyes.
“This time, we bring the fire p>
I grin. That’s my girl.
D
“ She’s amazing, ” Hawk tells me, and I know it; she is. She’s been amazing since the day I first saw her. When she held that blade to Haiden’s throat without mercy. When she left us in the dust, forcing us to do better, to be better. I think, with this girl by my side, we’ll always try to be the best versions of ourselves. Because that was love is right? Fixing yourself, trying every fucking day to please them, to make them proud, to make them want to love you. Not because fate told you to, but because you want to. Fate blessed me, blessed all of us with a reason to be better men, and I would die trying if I had to, just to be able to spend every last breath I have with her, watching her as she braves every storm thrown at her.
“ You sure about this? ” I ask one last time,
She doesn’t hesitate.
“Let’s finish what they started,” she says.
And together, we drop into the dark, portaling straight to where we need to be. Right into the eye of the storm, for my girl, my world, my reason.
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