He doesn’t argue. That’s how I know it’s bad.
I pull open the last few straps and peel the armor back. My stomach clenches. The wound pulses once, like it’s breathing. A black vein surges across his ribs, branching in tiny lightning bolts. Every breath he takes bubbles faint smoke from the gash.
I grab gloves, a rag soaked in mountain sage, and a bottle of banishment oil from my shelf of Very Bad Ideas.
“Hold still.”
He flinches when I touch the rag to the wound, his hand curling around the couch arm hard enough to splinter the wood.
“Just curse me out in Orcish. It’ll help,” I mutter.
He grits out something low and violent-sounding.
“Thanks. That helpedno one.”
Behind me, Peggy Sue unpacks a bag of magical detritus onto the counter—spools of enchanted thread, another jar of graveyard dirt, a lantern full of phoenix ash I didn’t even know she had.
“Want a healing charm?” she asks. “Got one soaked in tequila and regret.”
“He needs amiracle,” I reply, then pause. “Wait. Do you still have that chunk of the Spear?”
Kursk growls. “It isnota chunk.”
I ignore him and pull the half-splintered Khallumite core from its iron casing. The crystal thrums faintly, like a dying star. I can stillfeelit—raw power, furious and old, now flickering like a heartbeat running out of blood.
“You sure you want to do this?” Peggy asks. “That thing’s already dimmer than your ex’s personality.”
“It’s the only way to reach Rand,” I say, throat dry. “If there’s a workaround, we need it now.”
Kursk tries to sit up. “The Spear’s power is not infinite.”
“Neither is your blood supply.”
He starts to argue, but I hold up a finger. “Don’t.”
I carve the binding rune into my palm with the ritual blade—not deep, just enough for blood to drip. The moment it hits the Spear fragment, the air snaps cold. The windows frost. Every candle in the cabin flickers and dies.
The Khallumite glows again. Weak, but aware.
I breathe into it. Focus.
“Chief Rand Starborn,” I whisper, “We call upon you.”
For a second, nothing.
Then a spark. A shimmer. A voice crackling through static, ancient and metallic and impossibly distant.
“Olivia. You’ve burned deep to reach me.”
Kursk tries to rise again. “Rand?—”
“You are wounded,” Rand says, already grim. “I can feel the shadow inside you.”
“We lost the trap,” I say. “The Vorfaluka broke containment. It’s adapting faster than we can counter.”
Rand’s voice is razor-sharp now. “If you do not strike it down soon, Kursk will beanchoredto your world.”
I blink. “What?”
