Cannons still boom around us, shattering walls that have stood for centuries, and the shouts of soldiers close in.
“We need to hurry,” my mother says in a low hush, her eyes on mine with a weight I can’t quite name.
Seren rises slowly from her knees. The Lunar Codex laid before her—its spine splitting light, the parchment breathing as if alive. Sigils inked in silver crawl across the open pages, shifting and rearranging into words older than gods.
When she speaks, it’s not Seren’s voice that fills the chamber.
It’s the language of somethingother.
Each syllable hums through the stone, reverberates through my bones.
The sound of something unbinding.
“By the hands that bound, we unbind.
By the blood that silenced, we recall.
Let the light return to what was stolen.”
Seren’s hands ignite—thin white lines fly from her palms, etching themselves into the floor, weaving around the chamber in an intricate web of light and shadow.
The air crackles. The castle groans. As if the spell is set in motion.
But then?—
Maldrak laughs.
A low, rasping sound that slides through the chamber like oil.
“You really think I didn’t prepare for this?” he croons, his blood-slick teeth glinting under the flickering light. “Do you think I’d come here without assurances? Without safeguards?”
The air tightens. The web of Seren’s spell flickers.
She falters, her hands trembling as the Codex’s light dims.
But I see the way his nostrils flare—his telltale sign that he’s not getting his way. Because as much as I want to forget my time in Kryntar Castle, the details are etched into my mind like holy scripture—permanent, undeniable.
The subtle flare of his nostrils, his eyes a half-shade darker than Kael’s, the way he drums his fingers on the table when he’s trying to keep himself calm.
He’s bluffing. I send my thoughts through the tether, sharp and hot.
“Keep going!” Kael commands, his voice cutting through the dread.
Maldrak’s grin widens, manic. “My dear nephew… my assurances arewritten in blood. Perhaps all of us of the Thorne family are tied together. You, me, Nalya. And of course our lovely Elyssara.”
Teddy doesn’t wait. He strides across the chamber in three quick paces, and launches his boot into Maldrak’s ribs with a sickening crack that I relish.
A wheeze escapes Maldrak, before he explodes into riotous laughter. Twisted and unnerving. “I never got the chance to tell you, Therion…” he rasps, clutching his ribs. “Taali was a fighter. Kept begging me to spare the child even after she knew she was bleeding out. I tried to cut the babe out, and well… you saw the outcome. I told her mercy is for the living.”
The chamber stills. No breath. No sound.
Even the Codex seems to hesitate—like magic itself recoils from his words.
And then Kael moves.
He lifts Maldrak up by the collar, a feral, animalistic growl rips from his throat like wrath incarnate.
His fists land on Maldrak’s face in a sickening crunch, but he doesn’t let up.
