It was less “sacrificial ceremony” and more “co-op farmers’ market.”
“Not quite what you imagined, huh?” Callie teased.
“No,” I admitted. “Where are the blood sacrifices?”
Callie smirked. “You joke, but wait until you try Yvonne’s fresh-baked sourdough. Now, that is a spiritual experience.”
I was still mentally recalibrating when my gaze snagged on someone across the clearing.
Unlike the others—who looked like a mix of lost Phish fans and ex-tech bros finding themselves—this man stood apart.
His dark, unruly hair fell in thick waves just past his shoulders, and he clearly had no trouble whatsoever cultivating a beard. Mostly, though, what I noticed was that he was big. Tall.Massive. Like he was built on a scale that made everything around him seem too small—people, spaces, the very idea of containment itself.
And then there were his eyes—startlingly green, even from where I stood. Too deep, too knowing. They settled on me like he’d been expecting me. Like he recognized me, though we’d never met.
Something in my chest did a weird tightening thing.
“Who’s that?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Callie followed my gaze and grinned. “That’s Faelan. He’s the one person here who won’t care that you showed up.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because he’s strange.”
“Strange how?”
Callie shot me a sideways look. “If you think my brother is rude, this guy’s another thing entirely.”
That caught my attention. She rarely brought up her brother, and when she did, it involved lots of swear words. “Meaning?”
She huffed out a breath. “Meaning, he doesn’t talk to people. Not really. Sticks around, does his own thing, and when he does open his mouth, it’s usually to make you feel like an idiot for asking a question in the first place.”
I looked back toward the trees where he’d disappeared. “Then why’s he here?”
Callie spread her arms in a vague, all-encompassing gesture. “Why is anyone here? To seek, to grow, to connect with the energy of the land—”
I cut her a flat look. “Callie.”
She sighed, dropping the theatrics. “I’m serious. No one really knows. Maybe he’s on the spectrum or something. Or he’s like a walking ley line, just channeling too much energy to function like the rest of us.”
That didn’t make sense, but neither did the way my mind kept circling back to the guy. I wasn’t attracted to him–obviously. He was too wild, too intense, and apparently a pretty lousy conversationalist.
But still, those piercing green eyes lingered in my mind, sharp as cut glass, like he’d seen straight through me in the half-second our gazes met.
I shook it off. Nope. Not attracted. Just…mildly unsettled. That was all.
2
Faelan
The forest whispered in my ear. It told me what I would find before I reached the clearing. Another offering.
Another baffling gesture.
I pushed through the trees, and there it was—a neat little pile of crystals on a flat stone, stacked as if their arrangement might make any difference. Quartz, amethyst, a few jagged scraps of pyrite. Nothing special. Just minerals pulled from the earth and shaped by hands that didn’t understand their own insignificance.
Meaningless.
