Then something shifts.
Cold. Hard as iron.
His eyes find mine. Wild. Bloodshot.
“I can’t stop them.”
The glowing men don’t move. Observing and cold.
The words scrape out of Kael.
Truth.
“My father…” his breath shudders, voice breaking, “couldn’t either.”
Failure.
That’s where his thoughts end.
Unraveling, frigid.
He releases my hand, body shaking. Face red, twisted in pain.
My chest tightens. This isit.
Then an idea comes like a spark in dry brush.
“Bracelet. Dampener,” Kael grunts. Almost too soft to hear.
My fingers tremble as I reach for it. The metal is cold. Too cold.
Calder steps closer. The ground fractures beneath his feet—not from force, but from something heavier than gravity pressing down around him.
“Wildblood,” he says, gaze locking on Kael. “You should not exist in this form.”
Kael’s lip curls. Anguish and shame radiating from him in waves. “Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”
“How is he doing this?” Torin says, but his lips never move.
Am I hearing inside his mind now?
Calder’s gaze shifts to me, and something in it changes. “Shield us from your mind. Like the other pair did.”
Then I feel it… a thrust of pain so sharp, so complete it tears through me like white light.
Kael’s body slumps forward. His grip falters on the saddle.
For a second, I think he’s going to fall.
“Josephine and Ash?” I whisper against the back of his neck. A faint glimmer of hope.
Kael only grunts.
But both glowing forms lock onto those names. Like something they’ve been waiting for. Their perfect distraction.
Then everything happens at once.
The air splits. Light explodes outward.
