Dagan’s wings flare halfway, feathers rattling with contained tension.
“Inside,” he says, voice gone flat and dangerous. “Now.”
“Dagan—”
He looks at me, and whatever argument was about to leap out of my mouth dies on my tongue.
There’s no room for debate in his expression.
No room for anything but grim determination and a bone-deep, terrified protectiveness I feel echoing down our bond.
I swallow hard and nod.
“Okay. But you’re not shutting me out.”
His hand closes around mine, rough and solid and unshakeable.
“I would not dare, Oona.”
We turn toward the archway that leads back into The Barrow’s halls.
Behind us, the Glowworm Moon watches with its pale face—softly glowing, light emphasized by shadow—as the land of Nightfall shifts uneasily in its sleep.
Nothing is as it seems here.
Nightfall is wondrous. Alive. Full of magic, dreams, and impossible beauty.
But as the tremor rolls through my bones again, sharp and wrong, another truth anchors itself deep inside me.
Wonder and danger walk hand in hand in this place.
And whatever is coming?
It’s headed straight for us.
Chapter 15
Dagan
The Barrow
The reports start before dawn.
I do not sleep much anymore, but on this morning what rest I manage is shattered by the first tremor of warning humming through the roots.
My eyes snap open.
For half a breath, I simply listen.
The Barrow’s stone ribs creak softly around me, settling against the cliff-face. The roots threaded through its walls murmur, a thousand tiny voices passing messages along the ley.
Far below, the Marches breathe—the slow, steady exhale of soil and seed.
And under it all, like grit grinding between teeth, is something else.
SoulTaker rot.
I am out of bed before the next pulse.
