The priestess smiled.
“You feel him,” she said. “Good. That will make this more… poignant.”
She spread her fingers wide.
Shadows thickened around the invisible line of the path, twisting, spiraling, condensing into a dark cord that arced over the village like a visible artery, throbbing.
The air vibrated with it.
Nova stumbled, catching herself on her staff.
“She’s binding the old path to a new anchor,” she said, voice hoarse. “Here. In the square. If she finishes, the hunger will have a mouth here.”
My stomach turned.
A mouth.
In the middle of Stella’s town.
Keegan swore, low and vicious.
“We’re not letting that happen,” he snarled.
He shifted.
It wasn’t like his mother—no seamless rippling. His curse made it messier. Shadow roiled over his skin, tangled with fur, bones grinding audibly. For a second, he was caught between shapes: human, wolf, something made of night.
Then the wolf broke through.
He landed heavily on four paws, bigger than any natural wolf, fur streaked with dark, his eyes burning an unnatural, luminous gold threaded with blue.
He threw back his head andhowled.
The sound cut through the priestess’s hum like a blade.
It was not just sound.
His magic poured out with it—curse and wolf and something older he’d inherited from a line that had walked these woods long before Shadowick had a priestess. The howl hit the shadow cord above us, and itwavered,the pulsing stuttering.
The knot I felt where Gideon was tightened.
For a moment, I could have sworn I saw him, a flicker of a figure in the dark, head thrown back, chains of shadow on his wrists.
“What do you want?” I shouted into the humming air, not at my grandmother this time. “What do youreallywant, Gideon? Freedom or her?”
The priestess’s eyes snapped to me, furious.
“Do not—”
The shadow cordjerked.
It twisted violently, as if something inside it had thrashed. A crack of light, thin, but real, flared along its length.
Gideon.
He was fighting her. From inside her own magic.
Hope stabbed sharp and painful.
