It was loneliness.
It was loss.
The Hedge pulsed once more, then buckled. The world tipped, spinning, dragging me toward waking.
And the last thing I heard before the visions shattered was Gideon’s voice, faint, fraying at the edges.
“Don’t let me fade.”
The Hedge pulled at me like undertow, urging me back to waking, but I dug my heels into the fog and refused to let go.
Not yet.
Not when I could feel it. Something pivotal and something buried in Gideon’s bones was so close to revealing its secrets.
The air around me thrummed, sharp and electric, as though the memory itself resisted my intrusion. My skin prickled, my heart hammered, but I pressed forward.
“Show me,” I whispered. “I need to see.”
The fog churned violently, then thinned.
And there they were.
Gideon, not the boy and not quite the man yet, caught somewhere in between. His jaw was strong, but his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He stood in a cavern dark with fog, torches barely sputtering in the corners.
Opposite him loomed Malore.
I’d never seen him like this, not so close. His presence pressed like a weight on my chest, his smile razor-thin, his eyesglittering with hunger. He leaned in, his voice curling around Gideon like smoke.
“Stonewick is your enemy,” Malore murmured, almost tender. “It always has been. They never welcomed you, never saw you, never cared. They stole from you. But I care.”
Gideon’s fists clenched at his sides, his throat working as if he wanted to argue but couldn’t.
“You were meant for more,” Malore went on, each word deliberate, poison-sweet. “You are meant to be the Mage that watches over all magic, the one who decides who deserves it. And I will serve you. All I ask is that you claim what is already yours.”
Gideon’s voice cracked when he finally spoke. “How?”
My breath caught.
Malore’s smile widened, terrible and slow. “By casting a curse. Divide the lands. Rip their families apart. Let the bonds that hold them snap like brittle thread.” He leaned closer, his words hissing into Gideon’s ear. “Because then, you will see who the real enemies are. It is the ones that stay who will be the hardest to break.”
The cavern shook with the force of the moment, the torches sputtering high, shadows leaping along the walls. Gideon’s face crumpled with fear, sorrow, and longing, and they all fought beneath the surface.
I stumbled forward, wanting to scream, to tear Malore away from him, to tell Gideon not to listen. But I couldn’t touch them. I was only a witness, a phantom in his past.
The memory seared itself into me, burning brighter than any other. The moment Stonewick was condemned. I witnessed themoment Gideon let loneliness twist into weaponry, and Malore bent him into a curse.
My knees buckled. The energy rushed through me, hot and unbearable, every nerve alight.
“No,” I gasped, clutching at the air. “It wasn’t power. It was this. This moment.”
The Hedge convulsed, throwing me backward, and I tumbled hard into darkness.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the inn room.
Gideon was coughing violently, his entire body jerking with the force of it. Shadows spilled from his mouth with each ragged breath, curling black against the sheets.
The sound alone was enough to bring the others crashing back in.
