Kaelen reached the slab before the light finished swallowing the room. He didn’t fight the guards so much as go through them in one motion, blade and shoulder and a raw fury moving together the way Rhae had only ever seen him move in the worst of a battle, never for her specifically, not until now. Valen was a half-step behind, faster with his hands than his brother, already at her wrists, already working the restraints with fingers that didn’t shake even though his voice did. “Stay with us,” he said, low, urgent, not quite a command and not quite a plea. “Whatever this is, you don’t go into it alone.” “I don’t think I have a choice,” Rhae said, and felt, even as she said it, how true that was becoming. The elder’s chant hadn’t stopped. If anything, the surge of the twins breaking in had fed the chalk lines, which flared brighter instead of fading, the moonlight through the shaft above thickened into something almost solid, and Rhae felt the pressure in her chest sharpen from testing
Last Updated : 2026-08-21 Read more