A beat. Then sharper, harder.
“Idothis.”
Power whips up my spine like lightning. It crackles through my palms, raw and reckless, I bite down my pain and throw my arms forward—The door explodes off its hinges.
Two guards jump at the sound, heads snapping toward the new hole in the wall. They peer in—eyes wide.
I don’t hesitate. My hands twist, fast, and with a flick of pressure through my Threads, their headsslamtogether with a sickening crack. They crumple, unconscious before they even hit the ground, and I take off down the hall, boots slamming stone. Each step sends a jolt through my legs, they scream with every jarring movement.
Fuck. What evenismy plan?
All I know right now is I need to get out of here.But not without them. I can’t leave Finn. Iwon’tleave Ezzy.
Voices echo behind me—footsteps—my heart’s hammering, but I don’t stop. I round the corner, skidding into the corridor that leads to Finn and Rowan’s dorm.
Their door’s open.
Empty.
Shit.
More steps, closer this time, I spin and bolt for the main stairwell. The first step jars through my ribs like a punch. I grit my teeth and keep going, breath coming too fast.
Then I see him, Finn, near the bottom of the stairs, But he’s not being dragged. Not shackled. Just…walking. Two officers flank him, but they don’t touch him. Don’t lead. Don’t push. If anything, they’re following him.
I leap down the steps, skipping two—three at a time, each one landing harder than the last. It hurts. But still I keep moving.
“Finn!” I shout, Threads already coiling beneath my skin, hot and ready.
He looks up, just for a second, his eyes find mine—but when they catch, there’s nothing in them. No fear. No fight. Not even surprise. Just... stillness. Like something in him’s gone. Then he turns and keeps walking away from me. No chains, no struggle. Just him.
“No—Finn, wait!” I call after him, words tight in my throat but he’s already gone. One of the officers holds back and pauses as I hit the bottom step. Strannt. The fucking weasel.
“Where are you taking him?” My voice cracks. Hands raised. Threads burning, right at the edge, I reach for them. Nothing. I try again, harder this time—Still nothing. Like something inside me just snapped shut. “What did you do to me?—”
The words barely make it out before Strannt clamps a hand around my right arm—Pain explodes, hot and blinding. I twist on instinct, trying to yank free, but the motion sends another bolt tearing through my shoulder. My legs buckle. The floor tilts. I can’t move. Can’t fight. And my magic—silent, dead.
“He’ll be better soon.” Strannt murmurs, voice low and satisfied, his grip tightening. “He’s volunteering for service. Joining the Inner Circle. Our Sovereign Minister, Vaelric Serrane, will take care of all that negative pain.”
Negative pain.The words land wrong, my stomach clenches, hard and instinctual.The black-eyed ones in white robes. The red-haired cadet. The baker. That’s what they said...
“The pain, the darkness. He can take that away. That conflict. He took ours, separated light from dark. Now there’s no argument left. No noise.”
No. No, it can’t be—Can it? Is this it? Is this what’s been happening all along? The link. The common thread between everything.
Serrane.
The creepy self-proclaimed guru in white. His monthly sermons. His “transcendence.” His obsession with separation—good from bad, light from dark. “Enlightenment,” he called it.Purity. Healing.
I shift, trying to ease the pressure, the pain, on my side, but Strannt’s hand doesn’t move.
No. No, no, no?—
Finn, god,Finn thinkshe’s signing up for meditation. For peace. He thinks they’re going to help him balance it. The weight. The darkness.The Fog.He thinks they’re going to fix him, or whatever bullshit they whispered in his ear.
But Serrane—he’s going torip him open. Peel him into something unrecognisable, the same way he did to the black-eyed ones. Separate the light from the dark until there's nothing human left.
He doesn’t know. Hedoesn’t knowwhat he’s walking into... I have to get to him. I have to.
