Isildeth blinked rapidly, the tears spilling anyway.
“I need you to focus,” Evelyne continued. “Thalen’s here. He’s hurt, but he’s awake. I need you to take care of him. Can you do that?”
The maid gave a quick nod—uneven, frantic, barely held together.
“I’ll find a way,” Evelyne murmured. “We’ll get out. I swear it.”
With a shuddering breath, Isildeth pulled back. She glanced over Evelyne’s shoulder, spotted the small form curled on the floor, and crawled toward him, whispering his name.
The ruin around them grew darker as the evening bled slowly into the night. Last night the full moon was rising. She counted the hours in her mind like a litany, ticking each one off in silence.
She had to survive long enough.
Think, she told herself fiercely, her mind sharpening against the grinding wheel of fear.What can you do?
She tried to assemble everything she had learned in her life, but nothing had prepared her for this. There had never been a class at court on how to free yourself from the bonds and how to find the will to strike down someone you had once trusted to guide you through faith and grief.
Was he truly the architect of this madness? Was he the hand behind the Maroon Slaughter?Why? What could possibly be gained by ripping apart the kingdom from within?
None of it made sense. Her instincts shouted that this was more than a simple betrayal—something deeper, more dangerous.
So she changed course.
Her eyes slipped shut for a beat as she wrestled her breathing into steadier rhythm.
What would Alaric do?
The thought came almost unbidden, and it startled her. But it lodged stubbornly there, refusing to be shaken loose. Alaric, infuriating man that he was, would not be sitting here waiting to be saved. He wouldn’t waste breath on pleading. He would be annoying. Ask questions. And when the moment came he would act without hesitation.
And if the moment didn't come, he would make one.
Evelyne opened her eyes again, fixing Halwen with a look so calm it could have frozen fire. If she was going to die here, she would die knowing why.
“Halwen,” she called. “Tell me. What is this ritual? Why are you doing this?”
Halwen moved toward the crumbling altar at the center, where a massive tome lay waiting. The book looked ancient—its leather binding was cracked and blackened with age. He spread it open with a reverence that bordered on fear, the heavy pages whispering against the stone like restless spirits.
Evelyne watched him carefully, noting the way his fingers trembled as they traced the faded script.
Halwen’s hands had never shaken before.
He didn’t meet her gaze. Only one word rasped from his lips, raw and broken:
“Prophecy.”
“What prophecy?”
Halwen did not answer. His hands moved, thin fingers tracing slow, trembling patterns across the pages. Evelyne strained to see, but from where she sat she could make out nothing. Prayers? No. She could feel it deep in her marrow—whatever was written there was older than prayers.
“A sacrifice is required,” Halwen intoned. “The last thread, unaware it spins the loom.”
Evelyne’s mind worked fast, faster than her fear.
She narrowed her eyes. “What happens after?”
Halwen’s fingers stilled briefly over the book before resuming their slow, mechanical tracing.
“One full moon, one verse,” Halwen intoned, his voice hollow. “The song born from the Day of Silence, each thread woven in sorrow, each note stitched in blood, until the loom of the world frays and the final breath of Elareth is spent.”
