Steps approach. Kylan rounds the bend, coat half open, revealing tunic clinging to a chest crisscrossed with healed claw tracks. Fresh bandage peeks where my earlier rune spark bruised him. His expression—Storm forged in restraint, but eyes soften seeing me vertical.
“Tea worked,” he notes. Voice rumbling enough to vibrate dust motes.
“Your healer mixes a stern draught.” I incline head. “Thank you.”
He studies crystal on my jaw. “Spread slowed?”
“For now.” I glance toward the dim corridor where lament hums. “The song carries weight.”
“Pup funerals always do.” Tone flat, but sorrow beats beneath.
“They honor him well.”
“Not enough to bring him back.” He gestures back the way he came. “We talk somewhere quieter.”
He leads along another tunnel ending in a chamber lit by single brazier and moon-window—an opening carved high where pale light spills like milk. A table of live-edge spruce squats in center, flanked by benches covered in thick fur. On the tabletop sits his pouch, the obsidian shard pulsing behind stitched leather.
I perch on bench, hands folded. Kylan stands, bracing large palms on the table like he might snap it if wrong words spill.
“Explain Convergence,” he says. “Use small words if you can. We’re short on time and patience.”
I inhale, gathering threads. “Once every millennium, celestial bodies align precisely with the fractures between realms—our world, the spirit shade, and the primal Feramundi. The alignment weakens boundaries natural and forged. Rogue energies spike, creatures slip across, magic distorts.” I tap sternum crystal. “Dragon oracles have charted these cycles sinceSundering. We believe the upcoming event will be strongest since realms split.”
“That’s in three weeks,” he grunts.
“Twelve nights, by star-pulse.”
His knuckles bleach. “Faster than council predicted.”
“Council data relies on mortal observatories. We read farther.”
He nods, jaw ticking. “And Narkarath?”
“During the Sundering, that entity tried to merge realms through force. The attempt tore the world nearly beyond repair. The first alphas and oracles bound it between dimensions. But the seal drains power each Convergence.” I brush lattice. “Oracle vision fuels maintenance… at cost.”
“Your body.”
“Yes. This is the price of looking so sharply into tomorrow that today fractures.”
He exhales—a gust that stirs brazier flames. “And the shrine?”
“It contains the original binding inscription—how energies were woven, which sacrifices anchored them. Without that knowledge, repeating or adjusting the ritual is guesswork.”
“Why adjust? Reinforce same as before.”
“Because the original demanded dragon heartstone. Dragons are gone.” Silence stretches; embers pop. “We need a substitute.”
Kylan's gaze slides to shard pouch. “Shadow thinks wolf grief works.”
“Grief is potent but unstable. We must forge something stronger, refined, or all realms tear.”
He rubs back of neck, muscles cording. Moonbeam from window slices across his face, catching flecks of silver in dark hair. He seems older in that glow, carrying centuries of pack memory though he is likely no more than thirty winters.
“So you’ll still seek the shrine,” he says.
“Dawn, if possible.”
“Ridge pockets remain volatile.” He eyes lattice again. “You nearly broke from one vision. Another could kill you.”
