Cassie felt the pull falter.“You said you had a leader who protected you.Perhaps, he saw the possibility of what you could have been.Maybe you could have been a form of balance.A third race of this realm, living in peace with us,” she said quietly.“And instead of embracing it, you rejected it, choosing power instead.We won’t let you do that again.”
The presence recoiled, not retreating, but surprised, and perhaps even a little wounded.
“Then you refuse.”
Cassie nodded.“For my child, for my Chosen, for the realm.”
Elora’s hand found Cassie’s, fierce and grounding.“And on behalf of every shadow elf you’ve been drawing power from while they’ve been trapped in your influence.Who knows, maybe they’d have chosen something different if you hadn’t had them.”
The clearing trembled, the braided light and shadow cracking along fine fault lines.
“This is not finished,”the voice warned.
Cassie met the pressure head-on.“No,” she agreed.“It isn’t.”
“Your Chosens will come.And if you will not give of yourself freely, they will on your behalf.And our leader will as well, as will his light.We will still prevail.”
The forest surged back in around them, sound and movement rushing to reclaim the space as the clearing began to collapse in on itself, not vanishing, but withdrawing, like a wound pulling closed.
The pull did not disappear.But it changed.Cassie attempted to move but her feet felt as if they’d been cemented to the ground.
Elora tried to move as well and then growled like an angry beast when she, too, realized they were now held captive.“Well,” she said, flexing her fingers.“Guess we just pissed off an ancient, sentient magical Chamber filled with shadow elves that no doubt have some serious PTSD.”
Cassie managed a tight smile.“We did.”
“What now?”Elora asked, her eyes roaming around the clearing.
Cassie straightened, resolve settling deep in her bones.“We hope that neither of us has to pee before Trik and Cush get here to rescue our stupid asses.It’s bad enough that we decided to go on some mission that we actually thought we could handle.Peeing my pants would be the damn icing on his ‘I told you I was protecting you’ cake that he’s probably going to feed me piece by piece for the rest of our long lives.”
CHAPTER14
“Righteous anger brings justice.Selfish anger brings chains.”~ Forest Lords
The castle hadn’t stopped trembling.
Its breaths came shallow and uneven, ancient stone ribs groaning beneath the weight of magic that refused to rest.Dust floated through shafts of silver light, the air too still to move it.A single candle burned low on the desk, its flame bowing under pressure that had no source.Every ward bent inward, trying to contain him—trying, and failing.
Trik sat in the center of the storm he had made, elbows braced on his knees, fingers pressed to his temple.His pulse roared in his ears, louder than the silence, louder than the wards crying in protest.
Cassie’s name sat against his tongue like prayer and poison.
The taste of the Chamber’s magic lingered—metal and cold glass, the scent of something old enough to remember creation itself.He’d fought darkness before.He knew its weight, its seduction, its promise of swift retribution.But this time it came wearingherfear, and that made it holy in all the wrong ways.
Cush paced near the shuttered window, shoulders taut.Every few steps, his gaze flicked to the Book.It lay half-open where Trik had left it, light dimmed to a pulse rather than a glow.“We’re running out of air,” he said finally.“Literally, Trik.The wards are sealing.We’ve tried everything else.”
Trik didn’t look up.The old mark at his wrist—dormant for centuries—flickered once before settling back to ash.
“There’s another way,” came Myrin’s voice from the other side of the door.The timbre shivered through the stone, calm but grave.“Not the one you’re leaning toward.”
Trik’s jaw flexed.“You can’t see inside, old one.”
“I don’t have to,” the elder said.“The darkness has a sound.It’s in the way the stones are humming.You think power will break the Chamber’s grip?It feeds it.”
Cush angled his head toward Trik.“He’s not wrong.”
Trik rose slowly.“He’s also not the one whose mate is being hunted.”
The Book’s pages stirred as if breathing.A pulse of dark light arced across the floor and spidered up the walls.
