“Maeve—”
My heart seized.
It wasn’t warm, or loving, or anything resembling comfort.
It was Gideon’s voice, the way it sounded when he was bleeding and furious and refusing to yield.
Alive.
Defiant.
In pain.
The priestess’s expression twisted.
“Of course,” she sneered. “Ofcourse,you cling to her like a burr to a cloak. Pathetic.”
She raised her hand to draw the tear closed, but Nova slammed her staff into the ground.
Light flared from the runes, shooting up like a pillar, striking the circular tear dead center. The tearheld, stabilized just enough to resist the priestess’s pull.
“Not this time,” Nova said, voice ringing with pure, cold authority. “He’s not yours to command.”
Ardetia spread her hands, sending frost spiraling along the edge of the tear, slowing the priestess’s reach.
Bella darted forward and yipped, snapping at the darkness curling toward Maeve.
Keegan’s wolf pressed into my side, shielding, anchoring, and guarding.
The Silver Wolf leapt directly between the priestess and the tear, teeth bared, a rumbling growl vibrating the cobblestones.
The priestess looked between us all, calculating, furious, and suddenly… unsure.
A flicker of uncertainty.
A tiny, trembling crack in her absolute confidence.
“You don’t know what you’re protecting,” she said, voice low and venomous. “You stand between me and the only future that will save any of you.”
“We choose our own future,” I said, breath coming fast. “Not the one you carve out of other people.”
My mark flared again, but hot this time, like flame on frozen skin.
The priestess hissed, stepping back like she’d been burned.
Around us, the shadows convulsed and pulled taut by opposing forces: her grip, Gideon’s rebellion, our resistance.
The tear trembled, widening by another inch.
Through it, I glimpsed shapes, shattering stone, broken sigils, and a hand reaching upward through smoke.
His hand.
Bloody. Clawed. Reaching toward me…
Before the priestess screamed, a sound of fury and fear, and the shadows surged again, slamming the tear shut with a deafening CRACK.
The square went silent.
