Chapter Eight #2
Light rippled along the floor, the air thickening with the scent of ozone and burning stone.
Kairen gritted his teeth, staggering forward a few feet. His magic reacted wildly to the power of the Heartstone, wanting to flow to its source. “Not this time.”
He forced the magic downward, sparks arcing through the air. The strain felt like splitting open a wound that had never healed.
The runes on the floor and walls buckled, shattering the binding circle closest to them. A blast of energy ripped upward, tearing a crack through the magical dome that surrounded them. Rindais flung out a hand, sending his magic—tinged with the red of corruption—out at Kairen.
Adira darted to his side, shielding her face from the wind. “You can’t outpower him!” she shouted.
“I’m not trying to,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m giving him what he wants.”
“What—”
He stomped his foot into the center of the floor. The moment it struck, the Heartstone answered. A surge of silver fire erupted, meeting the red current pouring from Rindais’s hands. For a moment, the two forces balanced—order and chaos, creation and ruin—before collapsing inward.
Rindais staggered, his composure cracking for the first time. “What have you done?”
Kairen’s voice came low. “What I should’ve done years ago.” He narrowed his eyes against the glare of magic rising from his hands. “I’m not afraid to face you anymore.”
The amulet on his wrist shattered. Energy tore through him; he felt his bones stretch; senses explode into color and scent.
The beast rose—but this time he didn’t fight it.
He guided it. The light flooding through his body was both human and elemental, two halves finally meeting in balance instead of fear.
Rindais tried to counter with his own magic. The floor blazed under his feet, sigils spinning wild. But the equilibrium had shifted; the Heartstone refused to obey him. Cracks spidered up the walls, webbing through glass and stone. The tower began to scream.
Adira moved toward Rindais. “This ends here,” she said, her voice cutting through the roar. She held up a scroll in her hand—one with the personal seal of the Crown Prince of Sunvaara.
“Adira, what are you—”
The scroll flared, the magic in the Crown Prince’s sigil competing with Rindais’s corrupt magic.
Rindais’s expression turned to horror. “You don’t understand—”
“I do,” she said. “Better than you think.” She threw the scroll into the magic at their feet.
The explosion of light swallowed the chamber. For a heartbeat, Kairen saw everything—the mirrored faces of old shifters, human eyes burning with divine fire, the endless spiral of creation unspooling. Then the world inverted.
When the light receded, he was on his knees amid silence.
Rindais had fled.
The tower was silent. The air glittered with falling shards of crystal that melted before they touched the ground.
Adira crouched beside him, breathless but alive. Her hair clung to her temples, her eyes reflecting the lights around them.
“Is it over?” she asked.
He listened. No more hum, no pulse of corrupt magic in the air. Only wind, carrying the scent of rain and ash. “It’s over.”
She let out a slow, shaking breath. “You’re bleeding.”
He looked down. The amulet was gone; his wrist was scorched where it had been. Yet the rest of him—his senses, his body—felt balanced. Human heartbeat, animal strength. Whole.
“For once,” he said softly, “I think I’m fine.”
Adira smiled through the exhaustion. “Good. Because I don’t plan to drag half of you back to civilization.”
He huffed a laugh that turned into a groan. “You’ll regret it either way.”
They rose together, picking their way through the wreckage of Rindais’s lab. Again.
Adira touched his arm. “Look.”
He followed her gaze.
At the edge of the forest, dawn was breaking—a clean light spilling over the trees, touching the Hollowwood beyond. The corruption had begun to fade; grass already sprouted in thin green lines through the scorched soil around the tower.
“The balance held,” she murmured. “The Heartstone healed you.” Her eyes gleamed. “It isn’t on Rindais’s side.”
Kairen huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Maybe the world isn’t finished with us yet.”
She met his eyes, and something passed between them—quiet understanding, the shared knowledge of what they’d risked and lost. Then she said, “We’ll need to tell the rulers of the Four Kingdoms what happened here.”
He smiled faintly. “You, envoy, will tell them. I’m not exactly welcome at court luncheons.”
“Just let me do the talking.”
“And if they don’t listen?”
Her expression turned shrewd, familiar. “Then I’ll find a way to make them listen.”
He believed her.
They began the descent as the tower behind them continued to smoke in the aftermath of the magical fight. The forest stretched ahead, reborn, sunlight filtering through leaves that gleamed newly green.
Halfway down the slope, Adira stopped. “Kairen?”
He turned.
“Do you think he’s dead?” She paused, her eyes troubled. “Rindais, I mean.”
He shook his head. “He isn’t the type to give up so easily.
But…” he paused, trying to make sense of what he felt.
“It felt like the Heartstone…abandoned him.” He shook his head, frustrated that he couldn’t explain it any better.
“When it healed me, I could feel it slipping away from him. Who knows where it is now.” He sighed.
“But it’ll take more than that to stop Rindais. I doubt we’ve heard the last of him.”
Adira frowned. “I was afraid of that. Be that as it may, I do not think we will need to worry about the Crown Prince allying with him again.” She smiled without humor. “We will have our hands full as it is, trying to stop the two of them.”
He glanced sidelong at her. “You proved yourself a great ally in there,” he said slowly. “When I track down Rindais again, will you join me in facing him down?”
She raised an eyebrow. “When we first met, you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”
He stepped closer until the shadows of the trees framed them both. “I was wrong. It happens sometimes.”
“Between us, we’re two fugitives who managed to bring down a mage’s secret laboratory and thwarted a corrupt Crown Prince.” Her smile curved slow and tired but true. “We make a terrible pair.”
“The worst,” he agreed, fighting his smile. No more words were necessary between them, there would be enough time to talk about feelings and forever—later.
They stood in silence as the wind carried away the last fragments of Rindais’s corruption. The world smelled of rain and possibility. Somewhere in the distance, the Sanctuary’s faint pulse answered—steady, just like the bond that pulsed between them.
Kairen reached out, brushing her fingers once, brief but sure. “Come on, envoy,” he said. “We’ve got a mage to catch.”
“And the Four Kingdoms to save,” she said.
Side by side, they walked into the dawn.