MasukRowan’s eyes stayed distant for three full breaths. Showing no recognition of the man, I knew.
Then he blinked hard and his own eyes came back. His hand was still locked on the table.
“Rowan?” I said.
“I am here.” His voice sounded rough. “Something looked back when the words finished. It k
I stood frozen at the bottom of the rise. The silver line on my wrist had answered each knock with a pulse of its own, and it did not stop pulling. It tugged north, like a hand on my sleeve. Rowan moved closer without crossing the space we still kept. Harl and Sera waited by the horses, eyes on the trees.“We do not open it,” I said. The words came out steadier than I felt. “Not now. Not with four of us and no way to know what waits on the other side.”Rowan nodded. “We mark everything. We take the knowledge home. That was the promise.”Sera pointed past the open grave. “Look.”A thin line of silver frost had drawn itself across the snow, from the foot of the grave north into the pines, fine as a hair. It had not been there
AdeleThe deep tracks led straight up the white rise and stopped dead at the summit. I stood at the bottom of the slope with Rowan an arm’s length away.Behind us, the two veteran vanguard riders held the horses by the reins in the brush. The snow from the blizzard two nights ago still lay thin and crisp over the frozen valley ground.The heavy boot prints and jagged claw marks cut clean through the white crust. Not a single track led back down into the clearing.“They went up and did not come back,” I said. My voice sounded flat in the empty valley.Rowan kept his eyes on the ridge. “Or they went into something that does not leave prints.”We climbed slowly. Every step fe
RowanThe silver lines on the floor glowed soft and steady under Wren’s hands.I watched Adele’s face more than the light. Her wrist mark answered with the same quiet shine. Darius kept his wooden staff braced firmly between the child and the floor drawing, his voice dropping into a low whisper.“Do not feed the current,” he warned again. “Our eyes look at the path but do not step onto the lines.”Wren pulled her fingers back. The glow stayed, patient, like a path waiting for a yes instead of a push. The light pooled toward the south wall of the room, like water finding a low place. Adele’s eyes met mine across the small space we still kept. The bond carried her worry and the hard choice already forming.&
AdeleI read the words again by torchlight in the side hall. Do not let Wren come to the mountain. The ink had not dried. The long tail on Lira’s L looked the same as always.So little time with my sister after ten years apart, and her last act was to stop Bram from running at a wall. He stood very still beside me. Rowan kept an arm’s length of space, the way we had agreed, but the bond carried his anger and fear like heat under stone.“She chose the red cloth on purpose,” I said. “She knew we would want to charge towards the glass. She stopped us.”Bram’s voice came rough. “Then we find another way. I will not sit and wait while that wall keeps her.”
LiraI left the fortress at first light with four riders and a clear order.Check the black-glass wall on the northern road. Do not make physical contact with its surface. Send a word down the link the exact time anything changes. Come back before the evening light sets over the peak.Adele had looked at me hard before I mounted. “You do not go alone near that glass. You do not test it with blood or marks. You look, you mark the edges, and you return.”“I heard you,” I said.Rowan added only, “Talon’s scout guides you to her markers. Past those, only our colors go near. No arguments with the glass. Arguments with me when you return.”Bram handed me a s
RowanThe hall was quiet after Adele finished reading the order aloud.Every wolf had heard the words. Recoverable prize. Land and protection for the pack that delivered her. Enemy status for the pack that hid her.My wolf stirred under my ribs, low and hot. I held it still. A king who snarled in this hall would only prove the order right about us.I kept a careful distance and spoke first. “No one in this fortress answers that order. We protect our own. That is not a discussion.”Bram’s voice followed, practical as always. “Watches stay doubled. Southern gate stays closed to any rider without my leave. Anyone who whispers







