“What the fuck is your problem?” I shout. “You’re going to get usbothkilled. Hurt me, and you go down too, you fucking idiot.”
He doesn't answer. I wait. But this time, nothing. Silence now.
Did he leave?
I edge up, just enough to peek around the side of the wall?—
Ryven’s still there. But he’s not moving. Not breathing. His arms are outstretched, fingers splayed. And his feet—They’re not touching the ground. He’s suspended, a full metre up, just hanging there.
What the...
Then—movement.
Behind him.
Two figures. White robes andblack hollow eyes. The taller one stays back, one arm missing, but the shorter one steps forward. Something tugs at me—his red hair, too vibrant beneath the moonlight, like I’ve seen him before. But the thought slips as he smiles, closing his fist and the air buckles.
Ryven’s body snaps inwards.
A sickening crack—ribs, spine, jaw—everything folding the wrong way, like something crushing the centre of him tight.
His mouth drops open. Blood pours from his nose as his eyes go wide—glassed over, gone.
Then he drops. Hits the ground like a sack of meat.
Behind him, the taller one tilts its head like a crow listening for a heartbeat. I freeze. Everything in me goes very, very still. Heart pounding in my throat.
For a moment, they don’t move either.
Then, without warning, the shorter red-haired one snaps his wrist, and a fist-sized chunk of masonry tears itself from the wall. I drop fast and hard back behind cover. It detonates where my head had just been. Stone shatters and rips past my face, grit slices my cheek. A breathless, thrum builds inside me.
Oh god. It’s them.The ones Rowan saw in Ashvale. The black-eyed ones who were there when the dragons attacked.
“What do you want?” The words tear out of me, sharp and too loud. “Why are you here?”
Floorboards creak—One of them stepping forward. A voice follows. Hollow, cold.
“You and your friends have been asking too many questions. Poking where you shouldn’t.” A beat. “Hesent us to make sure that stopped.”
Another blast—closer this time. Debris rains down from the roof. Shit.
“Who sent you?” I call, but this time I don't wait for a reply; I move quick, rolling around the side of the wall, flinging my Threads wide. Air, water—anything.
But they twist back on me.
The stress. The fear. Talen, Ezzy, Rowan, Finn. Everything hits at once, and my magicsnaps, slamming into the ceiling. Wood splinters above, and a beam gives. A roar of collapse, violent and deafening. I throw myself clear just as wood crashes down where I’d been a heartbeat ago.
Dust explodes into the air, thick as smoke, burning my eyes, coating my tongue. I cough hard, blinking through the haze, vision swimming in grey.
And then—A laugh. Dry. Brittle. Like dead leaves crushed underfoot. The tall one steps through the swirling cloud, unfazed, watching me choke.
“Or maybe you should join us,” he says. “I canfeelit in you. The pain, the darkness. He can take that away. That conflict.”
“He took ours,” the short one adds, stepping lightly over Ryven’s body. “Separated light from dark. Now there’s no argument left. No noise.” He raises his hands, magic flickering like nerves exposed.
No. I know how to do this. A deep inhale, let the emotions swell, funnel everything into my Threads, drawing air, moisture from anywhere around me—and thenrelease.
Hands outstretched, teeth clenched, I throw a raw bolt of wind-wrapped water straight into the short one’s chest. It hits hard—he flies back into the wall behind.
