She knelt with eerie grace and pulled a folded piece of old parchment from her sleeve, then placed it on the mossy ground between us. “This,” she said, “will show you the exact location of the ward access hidden inside the isle. You’ll need it.”
“Why would you give me this?” My voice was wary. “What’s the catch?”
Her gaze pierced me like steel. “Without you, we die out. Our magic is fading. We rot from the inside. But with you…”
She leaned closer, her whisper curling through the air like smoke.
“…we rise again.”
The forest held its breath around us. And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if the fire inside me was my own, or something she’d already set alight.
“I’d rather swallow my own sword,” I hissed.
“You will come,” Seraveth said with cool certainty, brushing invisible dust from her dark robe. “But if you don’t…” her eyes gleamed with a blood lit promise, “…I will collect you myself in a week.”
Like hell you will.
I lunged.
Steel hissed as it met hers, faster than I expected. Our blades clashed with a crack of metal and magic. She moved like smoke—fluid, ungraspable. But I fought like fire, raw and volatile. Sparks flew as I pushed her back, but she turned her body with serpentine grace, flipping around me and striking toward my ribs. I blocked, barely, and pivoted into a sweep that should’ve dropped her.
But she wasn’t there.
She laughed, the sound sultry and haunting, as her form shimmered—then vanished into the forest mist, like she’d never been there at all.
I stared at the space she’d just occupied, my chest heaving. “How does she do that?” I whispered, blade still trembling in my hand, before I retrieved the map she’d left me.
Kaelith’s voice filled my mind, low and oddly thoughtful.Seraveth is more powerful than you realize.
I noticed.
There was a pause, and then her words struck like a stone to the gut.
You have more in common with her than you want to admit.
My grip tightened on my sword, but the ache in my chest wasn’t from the fight.
What does that mean?I asked Kaelith as I wiped the sweat from my brow, heart still thundering in my chest.
Her response came slower this time, not laced with her usual dry humor or quick retorts.You are not ready for the truth.
I stopped walking.Is it me who isn’t ready? Or you?
There was a silence that pressed against my ribs.Perhaps… both.
That silence sat heavier than the blade in my hand as I trudged back through the woods, stepping over exposed roots and ducking beneath low-hanging branches, the map Seraveth left still folded tight in my fist. Kaelith said nothing else, but I could feel her presence pulsing softly—uneasy, like her mind was circling something neither of us wanted to name.
The Blood Fae shrine came into view again, cold stone and darker power radiating from its core like a heartbeat no longer human. The others had gathered near the perimeter. Zander turned the second I stepped through the tree line, his eyes dropping to the sword still clutched in my hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice urgent.
I opened my mouth, but the truth lodged in my throat like a blade turned inward. I didn’t know how to say it yet.
So I gave the smallest shake of my head.
“Just a conversation I wasn’t ready for,” I said.
But Kaelith’s voice lingered in the back of my mind.
