“Then we make sure it’s not necessary,” I said, though I had no idea how.
“This is bad,” Peeble said from my shoulder, their voice unusually serious. “This is really, really bad.”
As Eltrien worked desperately to stabilize what was left of Nimor’s essence, I stood and walked to the edge of the glade. I could feel them out there—the Hunt, patient as stone, inevitable as sunrise. They’d wait at the borders until we emerged, and then…
But something else was happening. My marks were responding to this place, warming against my skin, resonating with the ancient wards humming in the trees. This glade was old—older than the Hunt, older than the Autumn Court, maybe older than the split between Root and Bloom itself.
“What is this place?” I asked aloud.
The air shimmered near one of the massive oaks at the glade’s edge. Not like heat distortion, but like reality remembering something it had forgotten. A figure stepped out of the shimmer—or perhaps they’d been there all along and were only now choosing to be seen.
The Sage.
“Wait—” Bryx spun around, his compound eyes going wide. “Where did you come from? How did you—we would have seen you!”
“Would you?” The Sage tilted their head, amused. Their form was more solid here than it had been at the Autumn Court, as if this ancient place gave them substance. “I’ve been following since the Autumn Court. Did you think the Duchess would let you leave without… insurance?”
“You could have helped during the chase!” Sarnyx snarled, thorns extending toward them even as she stayed protectively near Nimor’s flickering form.
“The Hunt cannot harm me, true.” The Sage moved toward Nimor with careful, deliberate steps, their feet barely disturbing the grass. “Butinterference would have broken older laws. Laws that even I do not break lightly.” They looked down at Nimor with something like sadness. “This is neutral ground. One of the few places left where the old laws still hold. The Hunt cannot enter, but neither can you leave without facing them.”
“So we’re trapped,” Vashael said bitterly.
“You’re protected. There’s a difference.” The Sage knelt beside Nimor, studying his dispersing form. “He knew the cost. He’s known for—” They stopped, shaking their head. “Time is difficult here. Difficult to explain.”
“Can you help him?” I demanded.
“I can keep him from dispersing completely.” They placed their hands on either side of where Nimor’s head flickered in and out of existence. “But what he becomes… that depends on choices yet unmade. By all of you.”
As the Sage began working with Eltrien, combining their ancient knowledge with his healing magic, I felt Kaelren’s presence behind me—dark, furious, barely controlled. His corruption was spreading visibly now, black veins crawling up his jaw like angry cracks in porcelain.
“This is your fault,” he said quietly, voice rough with barely suppressed emotion.
I turned to face him. “I didn’t ask him to—”
“You didn’t have to.” His silver eyes were molten with rage and pain. “You exist, and people die protecting you. That’s what you are. A catalyst for destruction.”
The words hit like physical blows, and I felt Peeble tense against my neck. But I could see beneath Kaelren’s anger—the terror, the grief, the guilt of a leader watching his people fall.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply, because what else was there to say?
“Sorry doesn’t fix this.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides, corruption spreading across his knuckles. “Sorry doesn’t bring him back.”
“No. But maybe something else can.” I looked at my marks, feeling the power coiled beneath my skin, the Root responding to my distress. “The Root opened those paths for us. Created this opening in the barrier. Maybe it can—”
“Don’t.” His hand shot out, catching my wrist before I could reach for thepower. His touch burned—not painfully, but with the heat of his corruption meeting my transformation. “Every time you use it, you change more. Eventually, there won’t be enough human left to save.”
“Maybe that’s a price worth paying. If it can help Nimor—”
“Not to me,” he said, and the rawness in his voice made my chest tighten. Then he seemed to realize what he’d admitted, what he’d revealed. He released my wrist like it burned him. “We wait. We plan. We find another way.”
“There might not be another way,” I said softly.
“Then we make one.” He turned away, jaw clenched. “We always do.”
But as the sun began to set and the Hunt’s presence pressed against the glade’s borders like a physical weight—patient, inevitable, eternal—I wondered if there really was another way.
Or if Nimor’s sacrifice had only delayed the inevitable.
