You weren’t made for this, Daughter of Silence. Fight. Come home.
“Evie…” Thalen sobbed next to her.
It sobered her.
Halwen’s chanting surged, louder now, desperate in its rhythm. He moved toward her in slow, ritual-bound steps. His face was pale with purpose, red eyes glowing. In his hands, the dagger glinted—a curved, ugly thing, etched with this cursed sigil.
Evelyne’s stomach twisted as she realized the truth: he wasn’t going to stab her.
He was going to carve her.
Like Dasmon.
Images collided in her mind—the priest who taught her to read the old myths, the man who blessed her name on the day of her coming of age, the friend who told her she was stronger than she believed. Now his hands dripped with the ruin he’d made of that faith.
Evelyne twisted against her bindings, panic sparking through the pain. He raised the blade higher, murmuring words that tasted wrong even to the air around them.
“Silence comes with a price…”
No fucking way.
Evelyne lifted both legs and kicked with everything she had left, driving her heels squarely into Halwen’s groin.
The impact was satisfyingly brutal. The man let out a hoarse grunt, stumbling back several paces before crashing hard against the stone floor. His dagger skittered from his hand, clattering uselessly across the ground. He blinked up at the sky, dazed and confused.
And for one brief, bewildering heartbeat, Evelyne didn’t see a traitor. Or a zealot. Or even a priest. She saw a broken man, trembling beneath something too vast for him to carry. A friend.
The mercenaries guarding her stared at Halwen. One of them stepped forward, raising a hand as if to strike Evelyne—
—but the arrow hit his chest first.
Chaos exploded.
There was no warning, just the sudden, violent crash of bodies as Alaric, Ravik, Vesena, and Cedric, along with other soldiers, crashed through the entry archway. The mercenaries barely had time to react. Some managed to draw steel, only to die faster for the trouble.
She twisted, gritting her teeth against the searing pain, and reached for the jagged remains of the shattered altar beside her. The shard cut into her palm, warm blood slicking her fingers, but she didn’t hesitate. She sawed through the ropes at her wrists with swift, brutal motions, ignoring the fresh sting as the fibers bit deeper before snapping free.
The moment she was loose, she drove the broken shard into the thigh of the nearest attacker. He screamed, crumpling at her feet.
She rolled to one side, breath heaving, and pushed up to her knees before forcing herself upright. Every inch of her screamed in protest, but she forced her body to obey.
She caught sight of Alaric carving a brutal path toward her through the press of mercenaries. Rage and desperation radiated off him like heat. A group of mercenaries had broken from the fringes of the circle, moving to block his advance. Evelyne's blood boiled at the sight.
Oh, for the love of the gods—no.
She glanced at Isildeth, who lay curled tight by the altar like a forgotten prayer. Good.Stay small, stay unnoticed.She saw Thalen just beyond the reach of torchlight, hunched over something on the ground. He was dragging the rope against the edge of a broken stone, his face twisted in concentration, jaw clenched like a soldier twice his age. The stone had cut into his skin; his fingers were raw. Still, he kept sawing.
Evelyne felt her throat tighten.Brave, impossible boy.
She spotted one of the mercenaries walking to her, blade in hand. Her gaze darted downward, catching a flash of something pale and jagged near the hem of her ruined nightgown. A stone.
She reached for it—only for the stone to leap toward her hand with unnatural speed, slamming into her palm with enough force to make her hiss through her teeth. Pain shot through her arm like fire, twisting up her bones. For half a heartbeat, she stared at the stone in disbelief.
No time to think. The man was almost on her, swinging a short sword with the lazy arrogance of a man who thought her too broken to fight back.
Evelyne tightened her fingers around the stone despite the blinding pain, drew her arm back with all the fury, terror, and sheer spite she had left in her body. It hit him dead center in the forehead with a dull, satisfyingly final crack. His eyes rolled back, and he toppled like a felled tree.
She dropped the stone immediately afterward, shaking her hand as if she could fling the wrongness off her skin. It hit the ground with a soft, innocent thunk, looking for all the world like it hadn’t just served as a murder weapon—and possibly an accomplice to magic.
