“You’ve done this before,” she says, pressing the edge to her skin without hesitating.
“Too many times.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m doing it for the right reason.”
After nightfall,Mari goes to bed early. She’s tired in that way children are when their minds have been stretched by the things adults won’t explain. I watch her climb the stairs in quiet steps, a stuffed rabbit tucked under one arm, her curls bouncing with each step. The glow of the mark flickers on her skin when she passes beneath the kitchen lantern. My stomach clenches tight.
Krista sits beside me on the porch. She’s quiet for a while, sipping tea that’s gone cold, watching the trees. The mist rolls in again, thicker this time. Heavy with weight.
“He’s coming,” she says softly.
“I know.”
“Will we survive it?”
“If I have anything to say about it, yes.”
She rests her head against my arm, and I let her. My body doesn’t know how to relax anymore, but she makes it possible for a few minutes. Her presence is like fire that doesn’t burn—warm, grounding, capable of destroying and protecting at the same time.
“I dreamed of him,” she says.
“Korrak?”
She nods. “Or something like him. He stood at the treeline. He didn’t speak. Just stared. His eyes were like yours, but empty.”
“He was always empty.”
I don’t sleep.I sit out on the porch all night, sword resting against my thigh, lantern flickering low. I listen to the wind, the ground, the trees. The Hollow speaks in creaks and rustles and the hum of old runes holding back time itself. I feel the tremor in the soil around midnight. It passes through my bones like a warning.
He’s getting closer.
And I’ll be right here when he comes.
CHAPTER 13
KRISTA
The storm hits like a declaration of war. One moment, the night air is thick with the scent of wet earth and tension. The next, the sky rips open. Rain doesn’t fall; it assaults the cottage, a horizontal sheet of water that rattles the windowpanes and howls under the eaves.
I jump at the first crack of thunder, my cold tea sloshing over my wrist. Hardin doesn’t flinch. His gaze stays fixed on the blackness beyond the porch, but his hand goes to the hilt of his sword. The gesture is so instinctual, so much a part of him, that it makes my chest ache.
“Well,” I say, wiping my hand on my jeans. “I think the universe agrees with your brother. The mood is officially ominous.”
“It’s just weather, Krista.”
“Says the man who just spent six hours burying magic nails to keep out the apocalypse.” I stand, my joints protesting. “Come on. Even sentinels need a roof. This is less ‘brooding guardian’ and more ‘drowned rat.’”
He finally looks at me, a flicker of something unreadable in his golden eyes. The wind screams, and a fresh volley of raindrums against the side of the house. He gives a curt nod and follows me inside.
The kitchen feels too small with him in it. He’s a mountain taking up all the air, all the space. Water drips from his leather vest onto the floorboards. I toss him a dish towel. He catches it without looking.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, his voice a low rumble that competes with the storm.
I look down. A thin line of red is welling up from the cut on my forearm where I’d sealed the ward. “It’s nothing. Forgot to bandage it.”
“It’s not nothing.” He’s in front of me in two strides, taking my arm with a gentleness that contradicts everything about him. His thumb brushes just below the cut, his touch startlingly warm. “You gave your blood to this place. You can’t be careless with it.”
