The air thickened. My breath caught.
Something shifted.
The Hedge opened.
The shadows stirred.
And I felt him.
Not just his hand, not just the rise and fall of his chest, buthim, his thoughts, his memories, his fears bleeding into mine.
The room seemed to tilt as the air crackled.
And then the world fell away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I tumbled into the in between and here and then.
It wasn’t like stepping into another room. It was more like being submerged in water. A place where I was weightless, muffled, every sound stretched thin.
Colors bled at the edges, shadows bent strangely, and everything seemed suspended, waiting.
And there he was.
Gideon, not the man who had cursed Stonewick, not the wasting form lying in the inn bed, but a boy.
A boy sitting on the edge of a cliff, fog curling around his small frame, his knees pulled tight to his chest. His hair fell untamed across his brow, and his eyes, those sharp, stormy eyes that would one day stare down clans, were glassy with longing.
He was staring out at Stonewick.
It glowed in the distance, warm lanterns bobbing through the streets, voices rising in laughter carried faintly through the wind. He leaned forward, straining as if he could drink it in, as if sheer will could bridge the distance.
I felt it then…the hunger and desperation. Not for power, not yet. For belonging. For roots.
The fog thickened, and the scene shifted.
Now Gideon was older, his body stretched into awkward angles, his face sharper. He walked through a hall cloaked in mist.
Shadowick.
The place was heavy, oppressive, every surface slick with condensation. Faint whispers threaded through the walls, words in no tongue I recognized.
Gideon moved quickly, shoulders tense, his jaw set. He was following someone…a tall, cloaked figure whose presence oozed unease.
Malore.
The fog clung tighter, and I could feel Gideon’s pulse quicken as he trailed behind. Fear. Not respect, not even obedience, but fear so sharp it hollowed him out.
And then a voice, Malore’s voice, slick and sharp as broken glass:“You will never belong to them, Gideon. But with me, you will be remembered.”
My stomach turned as I saw another figure fainter and more distant ahead of them both, but then…
The vision shifted again, faster this time, like pages flipping. Gideon stood in a stone chamber, a table spread with maps of Stonewick. His face was older now, hardened, the boy long gone. He traced the lines with his finger, eyes burning with both determination and something brittle beneath it.
Maps.
I felt his thoughts like an echo in my own mind.If they will not remember me as their son, then they will remember me as their curse.
