A subtle vibration. Heavy footsteps. Distant, but deliberate. Too steady to be a traveler. Too slow to be a farmer. Someone was approaching.
Her lips parted. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.
Rell shifted beside her, all trace of sarcasm gone from his face now. “Fane?”
“I don’t know yet. But it’s close. Big. Intentional.”
She could feel it in her bones. In her blood. That slow, heavy pull in the earth before something terrible arrived.
Rell leaned closer, his hand already drifting to his dagger. “Then let’s make this look like the perfect ambush,” he murmured. “And pray to every god neither of us believe in… that Symond and Vye make it in time.”
Elora watched as Rell pulled a slender vial from the inside of his coat. It was obsidian-dark, the glass catching only the faintestglint of light. He gave her a cocky smirk—barely a tilt of his lips—before popping the cork and downing it in one practiced gulp.
At first, nothing happened.
Then his outline began to ripple, the edges of his body distorting like the air above a flame. His features blurred, the shadows around him thickening, curling inward like smoke drawn to a flame—and then he was simply… gone.
Elora blinked, her sharpened senses straining. The space beside her where he’d crouched in the hay moments ago was just shadow now. Empty. Her eyes could normally cut through illusions, track the movement of a fly midair. But this? She felt his presence—ghostlike and muted—but he was invisible even to her.
“You’re still here… aren’t you?” she whispered.
No response. But something shifted near her knee, and she took it as confirmation.
Still, it unsettled her. Not knowing where he was. Not seeing him. It felt like standing on a battlefield blindfolded.
Her claws flexed against the warped floorboards, splinters catching on her skin.Breathe. Focus. You’ve faced worse. Probably. Maybe.
The vibration returned—stronger this time. A slow, heavy thrum that pulsed through the ground and up her legs like a war drum. Her gaze snapped toward the barn doors.
And then they exploded.
The double doors blew inward with a thunderous crash, splinters raining down as light and dust surged in. The boards slammed against the walls with the force of the impact, hanging off their hinges like broken limbs.
Fane stepped through the wreckage, massive and slow like a mountain deciding to walk.
He was worse than she remembered.
Broad shoulders gleamed with dull, reinforced armor. Coils of metallic cord hung at his sides, vials clinking against his belt. In one hand, a barbed whip crackled faintly with electricity. In the other, a small vial of black liquid shimmered with something thick and unnatural.
His eyes locked on her immediately.
“There you are,” he said, taking a single, deliberate step forward. “Where’s your bodyguard?”
Elora couldn’t speak. Her breath had fled somewhere deep inside her chest.
Fane tilted his head, amused. “What’s the matter?” His smile was razor thin. “Cat got your tongue?”
Her body tensed, claws dragging shallow grooves into the floor. He was baiting her, trying to shake her footing before she could plant it.
“No matter.” He raised the vial in his hand, the liquid inside swirling like oil in water. “I’ll deal with him soon enough.”
He hurled the vial.
Elora moved.
She launched herself over the railing of the loft, twisting midair. Her claws scraped the wooden beams as she dropped, her boots hitting the barn floor with a thud that rattled her bones.
Above her, the vial shattered.
