Chapter 68 #2
Dario, who had been silent until then, leaned forward.
His face was drawn, the skin beneath his eyes bruised with exhaustion, but when he spoke, his voice was level and firm.
“The realm is destabilized. That does not mean it is safe. Osin’s command structure is fractured, not destroyed.
We have Legion units without orders, shades behaving outside established patterns, and human settlements that will panic the moment they learn the Sídhe have returned to power. ”
Raijin’s gaze sharpened at the word he understood.
Elara leaned closer and translated what had been said in a low voice. As she spoke, Raijin’s face changed by degrees, the grief and confusion hardening into something colder. By the time she finished, his hand had closed into a fist against the table.
“They did not return to power,” Raijin said. “Their power was returned to them.”
After Elara relayed his words to the table, Dario inclined his head. “That distinction will matter to scholars. It will not matter to frightened farmers watching fire return to hands they were told belonged to monsters.”
His fingers rested against the map spread before them.
“Osin built his rule on fear of the Sídhe. On control. On the promise that he alone could protect them from the unknown. The Fold’s collapse proves he lied, but it also removes the leash he held around everything beneath him. That creates a vacuum.”
Dario tapped the map. “If we do nothing, every commander with enough soldiers and ambition will carve out his own little kingdom before the months end. The Sídhe are weakened. Many of them may not be able to put up a fight.”
Dominic sat forward in his chair. “Not only that, but Osin’s shades have… evolved.”
Gideon, who had said very little, shifted near the end of the table.
Until then, he had kept one hand tucked beneath the opposite arm, his posture too stiff to be natural.
Now Elara saw the reason. The bandages around his forearm had soaked through in places, dark stains spreading beneath the linen in thin, branching lines.
“One of them caught me on the shore,” he said.
His voice remained even, but a vein at his temple pulsed as he eased his arm onto the table.
“I’ve fought shades plenty of times before.
They are predictable, if you know how to keep your distance.
” He glanced down at the bandage. “This one waited—let me think it had missed. Then it pulled the shadow back through the wound it had already opened.”
Avis’s face went very still.
Gideon began unwrapping the linen with careful fingers.
The last layer peeled away wetly, revealing a long cut along his forearm, but it was not the blood that made Elara’s stomach turn.
The skin around the wound had darkened in delicate, rootlike veins, black spreading beneath the flesh as if something had been poured into him and was still looking for somewhere deeper to go.
“It did not only try to kill me,” Gideon said. “It tried to anchor itself inside me. I think it wanted a living body.”
Ice rushed through Elara’s veins so quickly she could not stop the shiver that followed.
Godfrey shook his head. “No. That’s impossible. It must have had another goal.”
Sybil laughed, harsh and humorless. “I watched a dead thing climb inside a man through his spine last night. We may want to retire that word.”
Dominic’s expression darkened. “This is not only a human war anymore. One almost got through our rift. It is only a matter of time before Osin realizes this and starts sending them into Tír na nóg, too.”
Elara swallowed around the tightness in her throat. “I’ll speak with Reynnar. Osin took his parents from him. He was in a rage when he called the banners, and he was not in his right mind.” Her fingers curled against her palm. “I’ll speak with him, and he will hear me. I know it.”
Dominic nodded. “Good. We will need all the help we can get, and the freed Sídhe will need both of you if they have any chance of surviving the next few weeks.” He looked to Gideon and Dario.
“Set up a small team to track Osin’s movements.
I want to know where he goes, who he contacts, and what he is hunting.
Reach out to Saria discreetly. Any message that comes back goes directly to me. ”
Dario nodded.
“And if by some miracle Osin is captured,” Dominic continued, “he is not to be executed until we understand whether the memory records can be restored.”
Sybil muttered, “That one’s going to be popular.”
“No one said he had to keep all his fingers,” Tristan said sweetly.
Dario looked horrified.
Avis looked delighted.
Dominic leaned both hands on the table, the wood creaking beneath his weight. For a moment, he only stared down at the map, his teeth briefly catching his lower lip as if he were chewing through three arguments before choosing the one least likely to get someone killed.
“We will also need someone who can track Osin’s remaining loyalists through the capital without starting a riot.”
“Ivan,” Sybil said.
Every conversation in the room died around his name.
Sybil held Ivan’s gaze without apology. “What? We’re all thinking it. He knows Osin’s methods. He knows the capital. He moves like a nightmare.”
Elara’s eyes narrowed.
Sybil said it too easily—as if Ivan’s corrupted soul were not a death sentence waiting in the room with them. As if there were some answer tucked behind that sharp mouth and careless posture, some plan Elara had not yet seen.
Relief moved through her before she could stop it, fragile and dangerous as a candle cupped against wind. It rose within her and caught, almost painful in its suddenness, because hope had become a thing with teeth. A thing that bit when she reached for it.
Maybe Sybil knew something.
Elara’s grip loosened by a fraction, then tightened again.
Maybe Ivan was not lost after all.