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Shadows among the council
Last Updated:
2025-07-15 00:52:37
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Her Enemy, His Curse The Night Before War
The storm came in quiet.No lightning. No thunder. Just the heavy press of air thick with longing, thick with something waiting. The walls of Hollowspire moaned under the weight of it, and in the chamber I’d been given—bare and war-scarred—there was nothing to distract me from the burn beneath my skin.Lucian hadn’t spoken since the council broke. He’d followed me through the winding corridors like a shadow made of firelight—silent, watchful, and too full of the same restless hunger that crawled beneath my ribs.I could feel him even now, standing just behind me, staring as I braced my palms on the stone windowsill, the cold seeping into my fingers, the heat coiling lower in my belly.“You’re going to war tomorrow,” I whispered, not turning around.“So are you,” he said, his voice rougher than I remembered, like it had been dragged over the edge of a blade.“I don’t want to sleep,” I said.“I don’t want you to sleep either.”I turned then, slowly, my back to the cold stone and my eyes
Her Enemy, His Curse The Road That Remembers
Dawn did not break in the Wildlands.It peeled back the edges of the mist slowly, like a careful hand unwrapping something sacred. Light bled in soft and gold, not from the sky—but from the roots, the stones, the very breath of the glade. The forest did not sleep, and neither did I.Lucian’s warmth was still pressed to my side, though he didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to.The Wildfolk moved in silence too, not from fear but from reverence. Each step they took was deliberate. Ritual. The way they readied themselves was not like us—no armor, no war cries. They wove bone and bark into braids, anointed their limbs with sap and ash, and looked to the trees as if asking permission.Permission to leave.Permission to kill.Permission to die.When I rose to my feet, the woman from the glade—her name still unspoken—was already waiting.“You slept like one of us,” she said, though we both knew I hadn’t.“I listened like one of you,” I replied. “The forest speaks in its own way.”Her lips cu
Her Enemy, His Curse The forest does not forget
The Wildlands began where the roads stopped, pretending to lead anywhere.Branches arched like ribcages above us, their twisted limbs blotting out the sun in thick knots of bark and shadow. Moss grew heavy along every surface, damp with the weight of unspoken things. There was no birdsong, no rustling squirrels or murmuring streams. Only the breath of the forest—slow, watching, old.We rode in silence for hours, hooves muffled by the soft decay of the earth.Lucian broke the stillness first. “They’re already tracking us.”“How do you know?” I asked, though I felt it too.He glanced upward. “Because the forest hasn’t swallowed us yet.”A branch cracked in the distance—not from weight, but from choice.They knew we were here.The Wildfolk had no banners. No thrones. No laws etched in ink. Their allegiance was to the old pacts, to blood and root, to the balance long before kingdoms carved borders through it.“I was told they don’t speak until they’ve decided if you’re worth hearing,” I m
Her Enemy, His Curse Ashes and Oaths
The halls of the Keep echoed with footsteps not my own.Morning light filtered weakly through the stained glass, casting fractured beams across the stone floor like wounds in the flesh of the stronghold. In the quiet hush before war, the Keep only held its breath and did not sleep.I had barely crossed the main corridor when one of the outer guards, breathless, intercepted me.“There’s movement,” he said, chest heaving. “From the southern edge. Riders. Two bearing the mark of House Yvain. One cloaked.”My stomach clenched.House Yvain had long been silent, scattered, and half-dead since the Hollowing claimed their mountain keep. Their sudden reappearance now was no coincidence.“Have they requested parley?” I asked.“They haven’t had the chance. The gate warden held them at the perimeter until we could inform you.”When I reached the outer court, the tension was thick as oil.The riders dismounted slowly, careful not to reach for weapons. One stepped forward—a tall man with skin like
Her Enemy, His Curse Shadows among the council
The war room smelled of cold stone and smoke, its air thick with whispers and unspoken grievances. The brazier’s last embers flickered feebly, casting a dance of wavering shadows on the faces gathered around the table. Each was marked not only by their sigils but by the heavy weight of history — ancient vendettas, lost Houses, broken alliances.Lucian stood beside me, a quiet sentinel in the storm of watchful eyes. His presence steadied me, but even he couldn’t dispel the chill crawling beneath the skin of this place.Irena, the woman with silver-threaded hair and eyes like fractured glass, leaned forward. Her voice was smooth, yet sharp, the blade beneath the silk.“We stand on a precipice,” she said. “The Hollowed Court fractures once again — but this time, the pieces threaten to fall into chaos.”A murmur rippled through the council. I glanced around, reading the silent conversations in glances exchanged and tightening jaws.Fenton, ever blunt, cut through the murmurs. “Chaos benef
Her Enemy, His Curse The Weight of Ashes
The morning light was unforgiving, spilling harsh and unrelenting through the stained glass windows. It fell in fractured shards across the war room where I had returned hours ago, but this time the fire in the brazier was cold, reduced to smoldering coals. The council had not dispersed. They lingered like shadows bound to the room — waiting, watching.Lucian was by my side still, but the space between us felt fragile — stretched taut by things unsaid. His fingers brushed mine once, twice, but I didn’t reach back. Not yet.The woman with the silver hair — Irena — sat at the head of the table, her eyes sharp as broken glass, dissecting every movement I made. Around her, the others shifted, cloaked figures wearing the weight of old grudges and heavier secrets.“You burned in their fire,” Irena said, voice cool, a faint edge of something like grudging respect threading her words. “And you survived.”“Yes,” I said. “Because it was my flame, not theirs.”She nodded slowly, but her eyes bet
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