Not to channel magic. To listen.
At first, nothing comes except ordinary sensations—dirt, cold, pressure. The minute sounds of night insects. My own breath ghosting past my lips.
Then something shifts.
Not in the land. In me.
A pull starts behind my ribs, like a hook caught in muscle. My pulse skips, then doubles back. Irregular. Wrong. My breath hitches in my throat.
A thought slides across my mind:You already belong to this place.
The voice sounds like mine. Uses my cadence, my inflection. But the thought isn’t mine.
I jerk back, breaking contact with the earth. My hands hover above the dirt. Breath unsteady.
But I don’t leave.
Instead, I fight back. I reach for my magic—that familiar current that lives beneath my skin. It rises at my call, but when I try to shape it, something interferes.
The energy misfires, scattering in unpredictable ripples. Like someone rewired the circuits while I slept.
I whisper, “Nova,” testing my own name in the darkness.
Vessel,comes the echo inside my mind.
My heart pounds against my sternum.
I stand slowly, dirt clinging to my palms. My breath forms clouds in the cold night air. I don’t brush the soil away. I leave it there, a reminder of what I’m facing.
This isn’t possession. This is corruption. Subtle. Precise. Targeted.
I’m not afraid.
I’m getting ready.
Chapter 30
Dane
The morning chill settles in my bones as I walk the perimeter. Frost crusts the edges of pine needles making the dirt path crunch under my boots. Dawn light cuts through the trees in sharp angles, not yet warm enough to burn off the night’s cold.
I roll my shoulders back, loosen my neck. My jaw stays tight.
Three full circuits around Ash Hollow since sunrise. Checking wards. Checking trails. Checking my own instincts.
Something’s off.
I pause at the northeastern corner where the training yard comes into view. Ben runs drills with six wolves. Their movements are crisp, precise, too hard.
Kari blocks Wyatt’s strike, then shoves him back with unnecessary force. He stumbles, recovers, bares his teeth forhalf a second. That’s new. Wyatt doesn’t show aggression during training.
Ben barks a command. They reset. The tension lingers in the space between their bodies.
I circle closer, keeping to the treeline. Reyna passes with a small patrol group, nods my way. Her expression stays neutral, but her posture is too straight, too controlled.
“Perimeter’s clear,” she says, voice low. “Nothing new on the east side.”
I nod once. She continues past with her team, back toward the lodge.
