Caelan nodded grimly. “The shard is active. We felt the tides turn hours away. Here, it’s practically screaming.”
Lirrane crouched, touching the earth. Her fingers glowed teal. “Tension in the groundwater. Like something is sucking the life out of it.”
Mingxi bristled. “The shard cannot touch her. Not again.”
“We’re not letting it,” Lirrane promised.
They began down the narrow forest path. Sunlight barely pierced the canopy. Ferns brushed their legs. The air grew thicker, heavier, charged with a pressure that made Poppy’s teeth ache.
After twenty minutes, she muttered, “I just want it on record that I survived a two-week walk to get here last time, and no one gave me a parade.”
Mingxi perked instantly. “I can arrange a parade.”
“Mingxi, I swear—”
“Oh! She’s mad,” Lirrane sang. “Delicious.”
Another hour passed. The air abruptly tightened. A cold wind spiraled around them and then reversed direction, pulling instead of pushing.
Poppy stumbled, but Mingxi caught her before her knees could hit the ground. She pressed a hand to her chest.
“It’s tugging. Not the moonwell… the shard. It knows we’re coming,” she said.
Caelan swore softly. “Then it’s worse than we thought.”
Lirrane hissed, “It’s poisoning the source.”
Mingxi’s foxfire flared around his fingers. “I will burn it out.”
Poppy steadied herself, breathing in through her nose. “We’re close. I can feel it.”
“Half a day,” she repeated firmly. “No matter what.”
The path narrowed, twisting toward the valley, and somewhere ahead, beneath the earth, the moonwell pulsed—weak, wounded, waiting.
“Let’s go,” Poppy whispered.
The group pressed forward.
By evening, the trees began to change. The pines thinned, giving way to twisted, frost-burned birches whose bark curled back like peeling skin. Their shadows stretched long and distorted, even though the sun hung high overhead.
Caelan slowed first.
“We’re close,” he murmured.
Lirrane crouched and pressed both palms to the ground. A tight ring of teal qi pulsed outward, immediately shredded into ragged threads.
She hissed, “Boundary ward is hostile.”
Mingxi’s arm slid instinctively around Poppy’s waist. “Hostile how?”
Caelan stood, jaw tightening. “The moonwell doesn’t want us walking in blind. It’s trying to keep out anything corrupted. Unfortunately, the shard’s influence makes it treat every living thing as suspect.”
Poppy wet her lips. “So how do we get through?”
“We don’t,” Lirrane said. “Wecutthrough.”
She and Caelan stepped forward together, hands lifting in mirrored arcs. Water spiraled from their fingers, weaving into a tight braid of tidal magic. A shimmering curtain of blue and silver formed between their palms—not fluid water, but compressed tide force.
