The outermost wall on the north side takes a direct strike. For a heartbeat, the stone there liquefies under the force—only to harden again as the ward-anchors dig deeper.
The castle is not just enduring.
It is answering.
We reach the junction chamber, where the carved channels of the ward network converge into a raised platform of stone shot through with glowing veins. I spread my hands against it.
Close my eyes.
Breathe.
The world outside the Barrow slams into my awareness—darkness, fire, a pressure like a storm front rolling in.
Foul magic gnaws at the edges of my wards, trying to twist them, subvert them, turn my own protections inward.
The taste of it is rancid.
Cold metal.
Rotten sweetness.
Grave dirt.
Idris.
I do not need to see him to know he is here.
He moves at the edge of the wards like a shadow with too many limbs, threads of soul-magic digging into the broken minds of the puppets he’s brought to the assault.
SoulTakers cluster at his back, their presence like pits in the land, each a void where hope used to be.
“They’re at the north face,” I grind out.
“I feel them,” Kael says, anger in his voice like a rising tide. “They’ve brought blight with them. The streams are fouling as they advance.”
“Air tastes wrong,” Alaric adds, nostrils flaring. “Thick. Used. Like a grave that’s been opened and left to rot.”
Thorne’s flames snap higher, answering my fury and the wards’ pain.
“Idris,” he growls. “Show yourself, coward.”
He already has.
If not to their eyes, then to mine.
The pulse of his magic slams against my defenses again, harder.
Testing. Taunting.
I dig my fingers into the stone until flakes crumble under my nails.
“He is here,” I say, opening my eyes, letting the glow of the ward-stone reflect in them. “At our door. At my door.”
Alina’s fear flickers through the bond—sharp, bright, quickly leashed.
I wrap my power around it. Around her. Around the Barrow and everyone inside it.
“He wants what the Barrow protects,” I snarl. “The crown. The knowledge. Our people.”
