One of the older mercenaries cast a single glance over his shoulder, then snapped his head forward again, jaw tight. A younger one stared openly, eyes wide, lips parted in stunned silence.
The air vibrated—a low, humming frequency that crawled over her skin, until the strands of her hair floated gently upward as if underwater. Tiny stones near the altar began to lift. First one, then several, trembling just above the ground.
The chant peaked, thin and sharp as a dagger drawn across glass.
And then—
Silence. Like a sound cut in half.
One beat.
Second.
Then, everything broke.
One by one, the priests and priestesses tethered to Halwen folded. Their spines bowed backward in impossible arches, mouths wrenched open in silent screams. Blood poured from eyes, ears, and noses, as if the very incantation had turned inward and devoured them from the inside out. One woman clawed at her throat as it slit itself—a ragged, glistening line opening across her neck with no blade in sight.
Some dropped to their knees, writhing, eyes bulging, veins turning black beneath translucent skin. One priest convulsed so violently his head cracked against the altar stone. Another tore at his own chest as if trying to rip something out.
She tried to scream but no sound came.
It resembled—gods, itwas—the aftermath of the Maroon Slaughter. The same brutal wreckage, the same sickening waste, with no one left to name as the cause.
Isildeth gave a ragged, broken sob, pressing herself against Evelyne’s side. Thalen was crying and hid his face in her lap. The mercenaries at the edges didn’t flinch. They’d seen this before.
But Halwen did not fall with the rest.
He stood at the center of it all, unbowed by the convulsions wracking his clergy. As if whatever force had detonated here had chosen him as its vessel. His arms were stretched wide, his palms open, his head tilted back. From all sides, from every dying priest and priestess around him, something surged. It coiled through the air like a gold smoke pulled toward a flame, winding from their mouths, chests, and open wounds—and poured back into him.
Into his chest.
His spine arched as the force filled him. The tendons in his neck stood out sharp and straining. His mouth parted. His feet lifted half an inch from the ground.
Evelyne stared, unable to look away.
He was not leading the ritual.
Hewasthe ritual.
A thin line of blood slipped from the corner of his mouth, his stare was fixed forward, pupils burning crimson.
Evelyne felt her stomach twist, bile rising up the back of her throat. Isildeth sobbed again, clinging to her like a lifeline. Thalen had gone completely still, his breathing shallow.
Evelyne watched, paralyzed, as Halwen started chanting again, the golden threads now rippling and weaving into new shapes, slithering across the dead toward her.
Towardher.
Pain struck like lightning.
The threads sank into her skin without mercy. Evelyne gasped, jerking against her bonds, the sensation tearing through her nerves like burning ice. She screamed. The pain dragged at her bones, filled her veins with something molten and ancient that didn’t belong inside her. It hollowed her lungs and pressed her ribs inwards, as though the air had been stolen only to make room for something else.
And then—she heard it.
A voice.
Not Halwen’s. Not any men.
It began faint, no louder than thought, winding through her mind like smoke. A woman’s tone—not in any language she recognized, yet meaning settled clear. It was warm. Steady. And it wrapped her in the quiet pull of surrender.
