FAZER LOGINThey rode home for three days with dread riding alongside them.Marcus lay strapped to a litter behind Kael's horse, his body secured against every jolt in the road. The violet line around his throat pulsed faintly with each breath.The Warden stayed beside him without rest.One hand hovered near his chest, feeding him what little strength she could spare. With every passing night, the silver in her hair seemed to fade until it was almost ordinary grey.Aria slept curled against Selene for most of the journey.Whenever she woke, she asked the same question."Is Marcus still breathing?""Yes."Every time, Selene answered the same way.She never told Aria how often she watched Marcus's chest, counting each rise and fall, afraid that one day she would look down and see nothing.Ashwood's broken gates appeared through the morning mist on the fourth day.Lyra was already waiting in the courtyard, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The moment her eyes found the litter, the colour drai
The darkness swallowed Marcus whole."Marcus!"Selene screamed his name and lunged forward.Kael caught her around the waist before she could reach him. She fought against his grip, claws pushing through her fingertips as violet energy poured into Marcus through his mouth, his eyes, and the open wounds along his ribs.His back arched violently off the ground.For one terrible second, it looked as though something had hooked itself through his chest and was pulling him apart from the inside."Let me go!""Selene, you can't touch it."Kael's voice cracked against her ear."It'll take you too."She struggled harder.Aria was still pressed against her shoulder, one small arm wrapped weakly around her neck. Selene could feel the girl's breath against her skin, but all she could see was Marcus.The Warden was already moving.Silver light flared across her palms.Then she stopped three paces from Marcus.Selene noticed the change immediately.The Warden wasn't attacking.She was waiting.Tha
They burst out of the temple ruins into daylight.Dust clung to Selene's hair and clothes. Her lungs burned from the climb, but she barely noticed.She stopped at the edge of the village square.Corvain was waiting.This time, there was no vessel.No Lyra. No stolen body. No human face to hide behind.She was a mass of violet-black energy shaped roughly like a woman, towering twice the height of any mortal. Her features shifted constantly, forming and dissolving like smoke caught in a hard wind.The ground cracked beneath her feet.Grass blackened wherever she stepped."You destroyed my anchor."Corvain's voice wasn't borrowed from anyone now. It came from everywhere at once—deep, layered, and stripped of anything recognisably human."Do you understand what that cost me?"Her shifting face turned towards Aria."Three centuries of patient rebuilding. Unmade in a single afternoon by a child who doesn't even understand what she refused.""She understood."Selene pulled Aria closer agains
Selene's mind raced through everything the Warden had ever told her.The ritual. The bond. The door that required two. Kael's blood still marked the ancient stone beside her, bright against the dark floor.Then it struck her."The bond."Selene pushed herself upright, ignoring the sharp pain in her ribs. "It rejected Vale because it demanded something freely chosen. What if that's the answer here too?"The Warden's eyes snapped toward her."Explain.""Aria isn't choosing this," Selene said. "The anchor is taking her. If I can reach her—if I can give her something to choose instead of letting it decide for her—""You'd be walking straight into whatever is consuming her."Kael's voice came from behind them.He forced himself upright with one hand against the wall. Blood ran from his temple, streaking down the side of his face where the impact had split the skin.Selene looked at him."I know."She turned back toward the crystal."I don't have a better option."Before anyone could stop h
Greystone Hollow looked abandoned long before anyone had decided to leave it.Crumbling towers rose from the northern hills, their stones split by roots and buried beneath thick moss. The old village square had disappeared beneath weeds and rubble, and even the road had nearly vanished.Fenna slowed her horse and frowned at the tree line."No birds."She listened."No insects either. Nothing."The Warden dismounted.Her silver eyes moved across the ruins, following something none of the others could see."The anchor bends the land around it," she said. "Animals sense that wrongness before they understand it."Selene glanced toward the trees.She was right.Nothing moved.Not a bird. Not a beetle. Not even a spider disturbed the web stretched between two branches.The afternoon sun was warm over the hills, yet the moment they entered the village, cold slipped beneath Selene's clothes.Aria walked beside her without complaint.That bothered Selene more than it should have.The girl had
Dawn found Ashwood in ruins again.The east wing had been gutted a second time. A few timbers still smoldered beneath the collapsed roof, sending thin trails of smoke into the pale morning sky. Scorch marks covered the courtyard, black against stone that had yet to cool completely.Selene walked through the wreckage beside Kael.Neither of them spoke.There was nothing useful to say while they counted what remained.Three pack members were dead.A dozen were wounded.Fenna and the other healers had worked through the night, moving from one injured body to the next until exhaustion had made their hands tremble.Kael stopped beside the remains of the eastern corridor.His eyes stayed on the blackened beams."We can't keep surviving like this."His voice was rough, worn down by more than lack of sleep."Every victory costs us more than the last. Ashwood can't withstand a third assault like this."Selene looked at the ruined building.She wanted to disagree.She couldn't.What frightened







