"They weren't myths," Stellan says. "They were instructions, just like Skye's marks."
Dmitri didn't just create his seven-element system to control Magila. He created it to prevent this, to keep forces separated that were always meant to combine, to make sure no six people would ever find each other and trust each other enough to become what we could become.
The conversation continues as dawn breaks, questions without answers, fears given voice. But underneath the uncertainty, something else is building. Each of them felt it when I showed them the marks, recognized their own symbol and the way it connects to everyone else's. The pattern is already in us. It's always been in us. We just have to learn how to stop fighting it.
"So how do we practice?" Jade asks, his arms crossed. "Mother Nature said complete surrender, and that's not exactly something you can rehearse."
Harlow picks at the edge of his sleeve, his mouth pressed thin like he's weighing whether to say what he's thinking. "Maybe it is," he says, and the room goes quiet. "Complete surrender isn't one single moment. It's built from hundreds of small ones — every time one of us lets someone in, every time we share a costinstead of paying it alone, every time we choose trust over self-protection."
"We've been doing that," Rumi says.
"We've been starting." Harlow looks at each of us in turn. "But we all still hold pieces back. Every single one of us has something we haven't shown the others, something we're afraid will change how they see us."
The silence that follows is uncomfortable because he's right.
"Then that's where we begin," I say. "Whatever we're holding back, we let go of it before we face Dmitri."
Harlow's gaze settles on me last. "Including you, Praestes."
"Including me."
"Good." He stands, brushing dust from his clothes. "Because I have something to tell all of you, and I've been putting it off since the network contract." He looks at Ambrose, something apologetic crossing his face. "We both have. The night Ambrose finished the mass communication working, I felt something attach itself to the network. Something old. Ambrose and I have been monitoring it, trying to figure out what it was before we said anything." He pauses. "It's not just moving through the connections anymore."
Ambrose goes still and it almost looks like guilt rather than shock.
"It's talking to me," Harlow says. "And I think I know what it is."
10
Rumi
Nobodyisabletogo back to sleep after Harlow's confession. The six of us sit in a tight circle while he tells us what he knows, his voice steady even though I can feel the fear bleeding through our bond. Something ancient attached itself to the network the night Ambrose finished the mass communication contract. It lives in the death realm, has lived there longer than anything Harlow has encountered, and when hundreds of connections lit up at once, it noticed. It's aware. It's moving through the links between sanctuaries. And it's been trying to communicate with Harlow for three days.
"What does it want?" Skye asks.
Harlow's fingers tap against his knee. "I'm not entirely sure yet. It's not hostile, or at least it hasn't been. But it's interested in us specifically, in what we represent. I need more time to understand it."
"And you kept this from us for three days." Jade's voice is tight.
"I kept it until I had something worth saying. Telling you 'something weird is happening but I don't know what' would have just added fear to an already full plate." He looks at Ambrose. "We both made that call."
Ambrose meets the accusation without flinching. "He's right. We needed more information before we raised an alarm."
The tension sits heavy between us for a long moment. Skye finally breaks it. "No more of that. Whatever any of us learns, we share it immediately, even if it's incomplete. That's what Mother Nature was telling us. No held-back pieces."
Agreement moves through the bonds, reluctant from some, immediate from others. We pack up camp in the grey pre-dawn light and keep moving north, the weight of everything we've learned pressing down on all of us. We reach the sanctuary at midday, and for a moment I forget about all of it.
The sanctuary in the hidden valley is our largest alliance yet. Several Magila have built real lives between the mountain peaks, complete with gardens, a marketplace, children who've never been told their powers are wrong. The elders debate for an hour before I step forward and give them the same truth I've given every community since we started this: there is no neutral. They join before sunset.
"There is no neutral," I tell them. "There is only 'not yet targeted.' Dmitri will come for you eventually, for your children, your gardens, your laughter in the streets. The only question is whether you face him alone or with allies at your side."
The eldest of the council studies me for a long moment. "Divine balance speaks truth," she says finally. "We have no choice but to choose."
The alliance is agreed upon before sunset. I should feel triumphant. Instead, I feel hollow. Using divine authority takes something out of me that I don't know how to name. I've stretched myself thin across the room, touched every person present with my consciousness, and now I'm having trouble remembering where my edges are. The black threads are restless, pulling at me, fed by the fear and conflict in that room, hungry for more.
I find a quiet spot away from the celebration, a small garden at the edge of the sanctuary where someone has coaxed flowers to grow despite the altitude. I sink onto a stone bench and try to remember how to breathe normally. The pull of both sides tears at me, light and dark, creation and destruction. I don't know how my mother managed this.
"You're struggling." Harlow's voice comes from behind me.
