“How do we do that?” One of Ziek’s men asks, his brown skin shining in the low light of the tent.
Silence stretches while we all think, tension humming in the air.
“It doesn’t like fire,” Nala says suddenly, snapping all eyes to her. “What if we create a wall around it? Like a cage of fire.” Her gaze flicks to a thin woman in the crowd. “Lina—do you think you could make something flammable enough for that?”
I study Lina as she nods. Her long raven hair is plaited and threaded with tiny flowers that sway as she steps forward. “A group of us can harvest sap from the smoak trees,” she says. “We can have it ready in a few hours.”
“That could work. Thank you,” I tell her, and she smiles softly.
I turn back to the room. “Lightworkers— your first priority is turning the others. Once they’re free, they can help us recover everyone else.” I pause, pulling the small tub of shimmering blue powder from my pocket. “And for everyone else… Ziek showed me this.”
Nala leans in, her eyes narrowing at the swirling powder. “What is that?”
“Powder from the lightning flower,” I explain. “You all use it to stun prey—but I figured, since the Siphon couldn’t cross the Sea…”
Before I can finish, River presses a quick kiss to my forehead—and Ryder straightens, arms uncrossing, with surprise flickering across his face.
“You’re a genius,” River says. His cheeks flush as his gaze flicks from me to Ryder, then down at the floor.
I hold the powder out. “If we dip our weapons in this, we’ll actually stand a chance. Using our Gifts will only make it stronger.” Worry glints in River’s eyes as the truth settles over him—this fight will be without our power. Without the one thing that usually keeps us alive.
Ziek’s villagers, however, barely react. Their abilities have slept by choice for years; they’ve learned to live, hunt, and defend themselves without their Gifts. Steel and instinct are second nature to them.
They’ll have no trouble fighting with weapons.
Nala’s smile sharpens with determination. “I know how to draw him out…”
***
Lina sends a group out into the Hollow to harvest the flammable sap. The Hollow itself feels like an armoury—Bloomblades growing like wildflowers, deadly trials coiled in shadow, whole trees that burn hotter than dynamite. Sometimes I wonder what other sharp, waiting things are buried beneath its soil, and whether they’re asleep or simply watching.
It feels wrong to just sit here, waiting for them to come back.
We offered our help—of course, we did—but they declined with gentle insistence, reminding us that rest and food would serve us better than hovering anxiously at their heels, urging us to bathe in their basins to scrub away the filth of the Hollow. But no amount of washing could ever cleanse this place from my mind. The memories cling to me—I know they will until the day I die—like shadows that live between the trees, always just behind me.
Still, it felt good to wash. To let the hot water ease the ache in my bones. When my feet finally warmed through, the relief was so sudden, so complete, that a tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
Now I sit alone in the tent, limbs heavy after the brief but necessary soak. The silence presses against my ribs, a weight I can’t quite adjust to, no matter how I shift or breathe.
The tents are warmer than I expected, the heat from the outside fires seeping through the fabric and painting the interior in a soft marmalade glow. For a fleeting moment, I let myself sink onto the bed. The mattress dips beneath me, and some tight corner of my chest loosens. Only a little. Because the instant my thoughts drift toward what waits for us—whatI mustdo—my heart kicks hard, as if trying to outrun the future.
I clasp my hands together and stare at them, trying to find something familiar in the shape of my own fingers. But even in the dim amber light, the strange energy braided through my veins pulses with a faint, unnatural shimmer, like threads of aforeign moonlight stitched beneath my skin. It feels… wrong. Not painful—just wrong, the way wearing someone else’s clothes might feel: close enough to fit, but never enough to belong.
As if my body knows this power isn’t truly mine. As if it’s waiting to reject it. Or worse—waiting for the moment it changes me into something I won’t recognise.
I draw a slow breath, but the air seems too thin, my thoughts too loud. Waiting shouldn’t feel like this. But it does. And the longer I sit here, the heavier the truth settles over me:
Rest isn’t the same as peace.
Not tonight.
“It’s chicken and rice.”
Ryder says as he ducks into the tent, the flap falling shut behind him and muting the distant crackle of the campfires. He’s holding two bowls—white meat, plain rice, steam curling into the cool air. The scent is mild, comforting, but my appetite is scarce.
He pauses when he sees me sitting still on the edge of the bed, hands splayed on my thighs as if they belong to someone else. The tent’s soft, orange glow makes the veins beneath my skin pulse faintly, threads of strange power weaving and unweaving like it doesn’t quite know if it should be mine.
Ryder’s expression shifts—concern first, then something quieter. Something only meant for me.
