That’s when I noticed movement beyond the mist.
At first, I thought it was just another shadow shifting between the trees.
But this one didn’t move.
It stood there.
Tall. Still.
Watching.
I couldn’t make out a face. The branches and drifting smoke kept breaking up the shape, hiding whatever features might have been there.
But I knew it was a person.
And whoever they were, they weren’t watching the fight.
They were watching me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The pressure inside the hedge shifted.
I felt it before I saw it.
The vines were still shaking under the weight of the shadows pushing through them, but something had changed. The magic that had felt tangled a moment ago, pulled in two directions, was settling into something steadier. The roots beneath the clearing felt like they were waking up, stretching deeper into the soil.
The hedge knew where it belonged.
And suddenly… so did I.
Another shadow darted through the branches toward Keegan.
I lifted my hand without thinking, and my shadow-wrapped vines snapped around her weapons, her shadows. The moment my Hedge magic touched them, they shattered.
For a second, the clearing went quiet in that strange way battles sometimes do—when both sides realize something has shifted.
Then everything erupted again.
The townsfolk pushed forward.
Orcs roared as they swung their weapons, smashing through the shadows that still swarmed the clearing. Witches flung spells that cracked like lightning through the trees. Bella darted through the chaos, a silver blur that kept intercepting anything headed toward the wounded.
But my Hedge magic had changed.
It wasn’t reacting anymore.
It was listening and blending.
My shadowed vines surged upward along the edge of the clearing, thickening into a wall of twisting branches and thorns that snapped at anything dark that came too close.
The shadows began to struggle.
They still moved through the air like smoke caught in a storm, but the paths they’d been slipping through moments ago were closing.
One by one.
And I could feel it.
