The Hunter scratched at his neck almost absently. “The kind that needs your… unique expertise.”
Sybil let out a long, weary sigh. “Of course it does.” She tilted her head, studying him for a moment before gesturing for more. “Elaborate.”
"I need you to test us for aDraoth Cara."
Elara froze. That word... she knew it.Draoth. He had whispered it to her once... in a dream. She blinked up at him, confusion knitting her brow. “What’s aDraothCara?”
Sybil’s gaze swung toward her, brows raised. "You don’t know?" She looked back at the Hunter, her eyes narrowing. "You haven’t told her."
The Hunter’s expression darkened. He tapped his foot on the ground. "I was getting to it."
"When?" Sybil challenged. "Before or after you put her through the test?"
He sighed, dragging a hand down his face before turning to Elara. “What we’ve been… experiencing, it isn’t normal.”
Elara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I figured. I’m well aware it’s not every day someone gets a bind with three seals slapped on them.”
Sybil’s eyes widened, her expression one of pure disbelief. “Rhiannon’sfuckingtits, you didwhatnow?”
The Hunter focused on Elara. “It’s not the bind,” he said, voice quiet. “But I think it’s why the seal I was supposed to place on you didn’t work.”
Sybil’s eyes gleamed, interest sparking as she glanced between them. “Oh, this just keeps getting juicier.” She ignored the Hunter’s glare and turned to Elara. “Draoth Carais an anomaly with casters. Normally, one bonds with earth, another with fire—simple, right? But sometimes, for reasons we don’t fully get, their powers connect. They start feeling each other’s heartbeats, emotions, even sensations. A touch on your skin feels like it’s happening to both of you.” She paused, eyes cutting back to the Hunter, daring him. “Go on. Try it.”
The Hunter’s entire body went rigid, his eyes narrowing to slits. “That’s not necessary?—”
Elara pressed her finger deliberately against a piece of splintered wood she had been playing with the entire time to calm her nerves, feeling the sudden bite as it cut into her skin. Blood welled up almost instantly.
The Hunter sucked in a breath, his right hand—the same side as hers—suddenly clenching against the table.
“Youfeltthat?—”
The words had barely left her lips when Sybil’s hand shot out and closed around her wrist, the speed stealing Elara’s breath. With a sharp yank, Sybil pulled her forward, vials clinking across the table.
The Hunter was there in the next instant—too fast to follow. His hand clamped over Sybil’s, the force making her grip falter.
“Release the Hallowed,” he said, his voice low and cold as ice. “Now.”
The air felt ready to shatter, pressure drawn so tight it might snap with a single breath. They stood frozen, breaths shallow, the room deadly still save for blood dripping from Elara’s finger down her palm.
“It’s just a drop.”
Sybil’s voice was low, almost a murmur, but her blue eyes… they darkened, shifting to black like a cloud swallowing the sky. Elara jerked her wrist, trying to pull away, but Sybil’s hand didn’t budge.
"Sybil!" The Hunter barked her name and his cousin’s gaze shifted, locking onto him as if sensing something beyond the present, beyond them. “I see it. The hunger. The need. You’ve been carrying it, hiding it, but it’s there, waiting. You want that drop, Hunter.Sobadly. I can feel it—the pull, the craving to make it right. Why fight it when it’s right in front of you? Take it. A single drop, and all isundone.”
Elara’s pulse spiked as she looked between them. Sybil wasn’t Sybil anymore. The snarky, playful girl had vanished, replaced by something… darker. Consumed. Something that made the hairs on the back of Elara’s neck rise.
“Andyou,” Sybil said, turning to Elara. “Your past will return, but not in the way you expect. What was once a memory will walk again, flesh and bone, and you will have to face it." Then Sybil smiled—a feral, twisted thing—and it seemed to snap the Hunter out of whatever spell he’d been under.
“Let go, Syb,” he growled.
The girl blinked, and the darkness in her eyes faded, returning to their familiar icy blue. She looked down at their entwined hands, almost as if seeing the blood for the first time, her lips parting in confusion. Quickly, she released Elara’s wrist and stepped back. Her face was unreadable. She crossed to the hearth and set a kettle over the flames with a clang, her movements quick and jerky.
“Tea, anyone?”
Is she serious?
Elara grimaced, wiped the blood on her cloak, then shoved her finger into her mouth, coppery and sharp. Her gaze snapped to the Hunter, wide with disbelief.
