My dad straightened slowly, drawing in a breath that seemed to steady not just him, but the circle itself.
“Hunger doesn’t create,” he said, voice firm despite the tremor in it. “It consumes what already exists. It feeds off desires that can never be satiated.”
The Wilds answered that truth with a surge of light that burst upward from the center of the circle. It encompassed us like an embrace of roots and starlight. The pain shifted again, transforming into pressure that pushed inward, forcing whatever remained of the Hunger Path fully into the open.
This was Malore’s legacy.
Not the man, but his choice.
Nova’s voice softened, and somehow that terrified me more.
“Now,” she said. “Name it.”
My heart thundered. This was the part I had memorized, the part the books had warned would demand everything I had left. I opened my mouth, the words catching for half a heartbeat as the Path surged, throwing images into my mind…Stonewick in ruins, the Academy hollowed out, power pooled at my feet if I would only take it.
I shoved the thoughts aside.
“Hunger Path,” I said, my voice ringing through the clearing. “You are seen. You are named. You are no longer hidden.”
The sky split open with a sound like tearing fabric, not lightning, but light spilling through, pale and steady and impossibly calm. The stars shone through the rift, brighter than they had any right to be, their light pouring down into the circle.
The Hunger recoiled violently.
“We reject you and all your darkness and wicked ways. Power should not be born in darkness, but in light. Let the shadows retreat, and the Path ignite into ash and memory, nothing more.”
Gideon convulsed, then went still, eyes wide, breath shuddering.
“It’s… slipping,” he whispered, awe and terror threading his voice. “I can’t hold onto it.”
“You’re not supposed to,” I said, stepping closer despite the tremor in my legs. “Let it go.”
Keegan’s eyes cleared fully then, the last remnants of shadow burning away as the curse inside him finally lost its anchor. Heexhaled sharply, a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, his grip on my hand turning gentle instead of desperate.
My father sank to one knee, not in collapse, but in release, the echo of Malore’s touch finally severed, his shoulders shaking as the last of that borrowed darkness drained away.
The circle tightened one final time, not to trap, but to lift.
The Wilds surged upward, roots and light and magic entwining, pulling the Hunger Path apart thread by thread. It screamed, but not in sound, merely in sensation. As every choice that had fed it was stripped of its power, the Path returned to the moment where a different path might have been taken.
And then stillness.
The mushrooms dimmed to their gentle glow. The sky closed, clouds drifting apart to reveal the stars once more. The whispers vanished, leaving only the sound of breath, of leaves stirring softly, of a forest exhaling after holding itself too tight for too long.
We remained in the circle, shaken, exhausted, but alive.
The Hunger Path was no longer whole. It was unraveling. And whatever remained would have to face what came next without its oldest weapon.
Choice had returned.
Whether anyone was ready for it or not.
The silence didn’t last.
It fractured first, like a hairline crack in glass, so subtle I almost mistook it for my own breath catching. Then the Wilds shuddered in remembrance. The mushrooms flared again, brighter than before, their light no longer steady but spiraling,colors slipping into one another as if the forest had decided restraint was no longer required.
Nova’s staff vibrated violently in her hands.
“This is the surge,” she said, voice tight but controlled. “The Path is unraveling faster than the Ancient Rites can settle it. Things might be a little bumpy.”
