“It pulls because it fears you,” Yunlian said. “Fear is a weakness.”
Poppy closed her eyes.
The shard slammed the circle again, harder than before. A crack burst across the ground, and Caelan swore, shoving his magic into the fracture before it spread.
“Pressure’s rising—this thing is furious!” he shouted.
Lirrane bared her teeth. “Good. Let it be!”
Mingxi pressed his forehead to the back of Poppy’s head, voice low and steady. “Reach past it, beloved. Past all of it. Find the moonwell.”
She exhaled shakily. Her bracelet warmed again—a soft chime of recognition—and beneath the shard’s rage, she felt it: a flicker, a heartbeat, a memory of silver water and gentle currents. There. Weak, but there.
“I feel you,” she whispered.
The moonwell pulsed in answer—a faint ripple of light that pushed against the shard, however briefly.
Mingxi tightened his hold around her. “That’s it. Again.”
She reached deeper, and the shard struck again, harder, desperate. Mingxi snarled, foxfire erupting high enough to scorch the air. The flames clashed with the shard’s pressure, the two forces grinding like opposing tides.
For a moment—just a moment—the moonwell glowed brighter.
Caelan’s eyes widened. “It’s responding!”
Yunlian’s voice rang out. “Everyone… synchronize!”
Lirrane slammed her palms into the earth.
Caelan raised both hands, water spiraling upward.
Yunlian’s light deepened into a steady luminous gold.
Mingxi’s foxfire rose in a brilliant flare.
Poppy felt everything converge at once—water, tide, healing, fire, and her own connection, trembling but unbroken. The circle ignited—a ring of blinding silver-blue light snapping outward—and the moonwell answered with a sound like a breath finally drawn after too long underwater.
The shard reeled back. Not defeated. Not weakened. But startled. For the first time, it seemed to feel Poppy reach the moonwell and the moonwell reaching back. The surge of synchronized magic tore through the basin like a living tide. For a heartbeat, everything stilled—the pressure, the cracking earth, even the shard’s cold pulse.
Then the moonwell responded. The water brightened from within, a soft radiance pushing against the cracks along the surface. The trembling eased, not healed, but steadied—like a dying ember refusing to extinguish.
Yunlian inhaled sharply. “It heard her.”
Lirrane braced herself. Poppy saw it in the way her shoulders set, in the sharp draw of breath like someone stepping into cold water.
Lirrane warned, “Hold on… because it’s about to get messy.”
The water bulged inward, like something beneath was trying to rise.
Caelan stepped closer to the edge, hands sweeping upward. “I see it. The core’s shifting—”
A sudden flare of black-blue corruption streaked across the surface.
Mingxi growled, foxfire roaring higher. “It’s fighting back.”
“No,” Poppy whispered, breath catching. “The moonwell… it’s opening.”
The water parted—not outward like a splash, but inward—forming a deepening spiral of pale light. At the very center of that spiral, suspended like a hooked star, lay the shard.
