She kept her attention on the runes, sweat beading on her brow.
Inside her skin, her energy roiled. Beyond blood and bone, something fundamental to her was awake and thrashing.
Her heart pounded. She touched the chalk to the slate, hoping beyond hope.
The thrum within her turned skittish, then sharp.
“Stop,” she said, pulling her hand back from the slate as if burnt.
It was the wrong move.
The flare snapped outward, not towards the clay pot, but sideways, tilting off course. The candle flames sputtered out with an angry hiss, and darkness elbowed in. A glass cracked somewhere. Wooden beams shrieked in protest.
“Wait—”
She threw her arms over her head as the first shelf tore loose. The books came down first, a rush of paper, thuds like bodies, a sharp corner clipping her shoulder. Then the ancient brackets sheared free with a squeal, and the whole unit cascaded down in sections. Dust billowed, gritty and thick, catching inher throat. A few tins skittered, the sound too sharp against the stone, before falling silent under an avalanche of pages.
Layla coughed, eyes streaming, mouth full of chalk, and the taste of old sawdust.
“Okay,” she said hoarsely to the ceiling, to the floor, to the pile of fallen books.
She stayed crouched until her heartbeat slowed, taking stock of her body. Her left shoulder would bruise. Her knees were scraped up by the stone floor. Her chest ached, as if struck, where her power had snapped back inside.
Blindly, she groped forward for a candle, whispering a spell to light it. The words hurt, like trying to run mere minutes after finishing a marathon. The candle flickered, hesitant to obey her, before settling into a steady, golden glow.
The wall was a ruin. Three shelves had ripped out in a staggered collapse; two others hung at mean angles as if daring gravity to finish the job. Books were everywhere, splayed open, stacked by accident, spines cracked from impact. Some had landed mercifully on others, but others had nearly ripped apart.
The remaining shelves groaned, and a few trinkets rolled to the floor.
“Right,” she said, one hand on her forehead. “Right. This is fine.”
One plank of wood juddered and scraped down the wall, unable to take the weight of the few remaining books on it. Layla darted forward with a squeal, catching it before it snapped fully. In the process, several splinters embedded themselves in her palms.
“Ouch, ouch,ouch,” she hissed, tears welling at the sudden bloom of pain.
With a frustrated cry, she released the corpse of the shelf, instead sweeping the books off and placing them on the floor. A few specks of blood landed on their old covers.
“Great,” she muttered, fists clenching, “those better not be any of the darker grimoires.”
She wouldn’t cry. This was fine. She had tried something; it had gone wrong. It happened. She would just have to be more careful next time.
Her head fell back, and she released a long, pained breath.
The sting of failure never seemed to diminish.
“Right,” she said again, “let’s get this sorted out.”
The words had barely left her mouth when a sound split the quiet. It was a long, low howl that rolled in from outside, distant but unmistakable.
Her spine went rigid.
It wasn’t a hunting call. Not a patrol signal, either. It was the formal cry, the one reserved for summons and death.
A few seconds later, her phone vibrated violently in her pocket. She didn’t need to read the message to know what it was.
Still, she climbed the steps fast, heart thudding, pulling her phone out as she went. The screen glared white in the dim shop light:
EMERGENCY ASSEMBLY. ALL PACK MEMBERS REQUIRED. OLD SAWMILL.
