“No,” Mavyrn says softly, her voice sharp enough to still the air again. “It remembers.”
Seren’s hands smooth over its cover, and as if responding to her touch, the Codex groans open. Its pages begin to move of their own accord, turning with a steady, deliberate rhythm, the parchment glinting with silver veins that pulse like Stars in the sky. Dust lifts from the pages, dancing on candlelight.
Elandor’s voice shakes with wonder. “It’s guiding us. Choosing what to show. Stars save us…”
When the pages stop, the chamber fills with a faint sound—like wind rushing through hollow bones. The markings on the open page rearrange themselves, the ink bleeding and reforming until the words gleam in silver light:
The Convergence of Forces
To bind a god requires four converging forces, without which no chain may hold.
“Maldrak’s spell,” I breathe, the words leaving my lips before I can catch them.
Gasps of surprise, awe and horror fill the chamber, but I can’t stop, my eyes hungry for answers. Scribbled in a chaotic hand, is a list:
•One Channel—born of the old blood to weave the binding, to bridge mortal hand and immortal power.
•One Anchor—a god’s own essence, seized in resistance, turned upon itself to lash divine will into fetters.
•One Seal—royal blood spilled by the murder of kin.
•One Rune by a Runewright—a grid rune carved into altar-stone, lattice between realms, through which the tether may be held and power drawn.
Below the final line of ingredients, the script curls downward, the ink seeming to breathe—silver smoke spilling into words that were not meant to be read aloud:
Note:
What is bound in sequence may be loosed only in reverse.
To unmake the chain, invert the links.
But beware—when a bond is unmade, the debt of blood remembers its maker.
Silence crashes through the chamber.
Elandor’s mouth works soundlessly, eyes wide behind his lenses. “By the Stars,” he whispers. “It’s a reversal ritual.”
Kael’s fury flickers across his face, sharp, pained. “Royal blood spilled by the murder of kin…” he murmurs, reading it again, slower this time, like each word flays something open.
My gaze snaps to him. “Kael?—?”
He doesn’t look up. His jaw locks tight, muscle ticking. “Maldrak didn’t just kill my father. Heusedhim.” His voice is a blade. “He bled him to seal the binding on Morrathys.”
The air goes thin.
Teddy swears softly under his breath. Seren’s hand flies to her mouth. Even Ronyn’s bravado falters.
But Jax, her mouth pressed into silent rage, pushes back in her chair, the legs dragging loudly across the floor. She entwines her fingers behind her head, breathing ragged and chaotic. Panic or something more sinister seizes her, gripping her so entirely she forgets how to breathe, how to speak.
Kael shoots from his chair, crossing the chamber in a heartbeat.
He reaches for her wrists, pulling them down, cradling them to his chest in a soft embrace. “Jaxxy, hey. Hey,” he soothes, trying to reach her. Trying to claw her back from whatever she’s lost to. “I need you to come back, Jaxxy. You didn’t know. None of us knew. He fooled us all,” Kael pleads, his arms wrapped around her, but she’s unmoving, save for the fragmented breaths that rasp down her throat.
“Jaxxy, we all loved him,” Kael promises, his tone pleading.
But it’s then that her eyes rise from Kael’s chest, chin tilted back all the way. The deep-brown hue of her gaze boring into him, her raven-black hair falling in a sleek cascade over his forearms, but her breaths still. “But it wasmewho let him in, Kael,” she breathes, meek and broken. “Your father stoppedincluding him in the war council for a reason, but it wasmewho told him our plans, anyway. I let him into my heart, my body…” she trails off, gouging at her skin as if she wants to shed herself of it.
“No one has ever blamed you—he would’ve found a way, regardless,” Kael counters, voice stoic and unrelenting.
