Chapter Seventeen
Adrian
As he returned to the village with Connor, whose boots sunk into half-frozen moss, Adrian realised the forest held its breath the way a wounded animal did.
Silent, taut, and waiting for the next blow.
He felt responsible for Irial’s abduction and the movement of the rend.
Connor was quiet as they walked, no doubt as worried as he was.
“There’s something not right about this place,” Connor muttered.
Adrian didn’t need the reminder. He felt it.
An echo, a ripple in the invisible lattice of magic beneath the earth.
He’d known about the supernatural all his life, but this was nothing like the shifter realms or the small wild magics that still clung to certain places in his world.
This was old and knotted. The Veiled Path. The Harrow Clearing.
He shivered before he could stop himself.
He still hadn’t tackled the most important question of all: How do I know all this Utharian lore?
Who am I truly? He’d speak to Xiathen about it soon.
He had no doubt Connor had already noticed his familiarity with some of the Utharian ways. Yet he remained silent.
Adrian swallowed hard. He’d spent the past hour trying not to think about the Highlander.
It was a futile effort. The man invaded his awareness like a second heartbeat.
Irritating, distracting, and disquietingly welcome.
Every accidental brush of their shoulders still lingered on his skin.
Every word Connor spoke carried a weight that tugged at Adrian far more than he wanted to admit.
“Do you feel it?” Adrian asked quietly.
Connor didn’t look up. “Feel what?”
Adrian hesitated. “The echo.”
Connor straightened, wiping his hands on his kilt. His breath formed a thin cloud in front of him. “Aye. You’ve felt it more strongly, I’d wager.”
The echo pulsed in Adrian’s chest like a second rhythm, an imprint left behind by the rend. A reminder of worlds brushing too closely together. A reminder of Irial.
Adrian exhaled slowly. “We’re running out of time.”
They turned toward the slope leading to the village. The echo pulsed again, sharper this time, tugging Adrian’s senses toward the trees on the left. He halted abruptly. “Wait.”
Connor paused mid-step. “What now?”
Adrian pressed a hand to his chest. The echo thundered once, like a memory of distant thunder, then settled on a direction. Deeper into the wood. He swallowed. “It’s calling again.”
“That,” Connor said slowly, “is generally how possession stories begin.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Me? Dramatic? You’re the one being led into the cursed woods by an invisible magical tremor.”
“It’s not invisible,” Adrian muttered. “It’s energetic.”
“Adrian.”
“I know.” He took a breath. “But if the rend left something behind, anything, something we can use to rescue Irial, then we have to investigate before we get the others involved.”
Connor hesitated, then nodded. “Fine, let’s make a detour. But we don’t go far. And we don’t split up.”
Adrian nodded, then stepped forward, letting the echo pull him back deeper between the trees, farther away now from the welcoming village in the distance.
The woods thickened quickly. Branches intertwined overhead, filtering the weak daylight into fractured patterns on the forest floor.
The echo nudged him left, then right, as though weaving through threads Adrian couldn’t physically see.
He followed cautiously, every sense tuned to the unnatural cadence humming beneath the earth.
After several minutes, he stopped short.
The clearing was small. Barely ten strides wide, and unmistakably warped.
The air was colder, and the ground was darkened in a perfect circle as though scorched by frost instead of flame.
At its centre lay a jagged dent in the earth, no larger than a shield, shaped like something had struck it with tremendous force.
Connor stepped up beside him. “What the hell?”
Adrian crouched, running his fingers a few centimetres above the indentation. The air tingled with the residue of tearing magic. “This is where the rend anchored itself.”
“So we found the footprint. Can you tell where it walked off to?”
Adrian shot him a look. Connor shrugged. “Worth asking.”
Adrian closed his eyes. The echo pulsed faintly, now fading and scattered. Whatever energy remained was dissipating quickly. If Irial had been pulled through, the path had gone cold.
Except… His eyes snapped open. At the rim of the indentation, half-buried under loose soil, something glimmered. Adrian brushed away debris, revealing a small charm, roughly carved, circular, etched with sigils he recognised. Utharian, and not from any clan, this was Desert Realm magic.
He swallowed a curse. “This belonged to Irial.”
Connor leaned in. “How do you know?”
“Because I saw it on her wrist the other day.” He turned the charm over. The sigil pulsed with a faint light. “It’s attuned to its wearer. A sign of protection. If she dropped it, she did so while conscious.”
Connor’s jaw tightened. “Meaning she was still fighting.”
Adrian nodded grimly. “And trying to leave a clue as to where she is now.” He stood, pocketing the charm. “Come on. This will help find her, but we need more people. Let’s go back and get more people to help.”
“Again,” Connor muttered. “Let’s go back again. Hopefully you won’t have any more woo-woo feelings. I really want a pint.” He grinned to take the sting out of his words.
They started their journey back to the village again, and with each step Adrian’s mark grew quieter.
The village square was alive with worry when they returned. People moved in tight clusters, murmuring anxiously, clutching shawls and each other.
Adrian’s stomach tightened. He hated seeing their fear. These people had endured too much already. Torn from their world and dropped into another like driftwood after a storm.
Xiathen and Fraser stood near The Dry Pig’s entrance. When Adrian and Connor approached, Adrian said, “We found something.” He pulled the charm from his pocket and placed it in Xiathen’s outstretched hand. As they examined the charm, Xiathen asked, “Irial’s?”
“Yes,” Adrian confirmed. “Dropped near the rend’s anchor point. The rend itself has shifted, so we’ll need to track its new location.”
Xiathen inhaled sharply. “Then she was conscious when taken. That is troubling.”
“Why?” Connor asked.
“Because the Nightwrought rarely take conscious prey,” Xiathen murmured. “Unless commanded.”
Connor’s jaw flexed. “By whom?”
Xiathen didn’t answer.
Fraser cursed softly. “We’re dancing around the same bloody answer. The ones you won’t name.”
Xiathen’s expression dimmed. “The Arbiter of the Council of Veils. The one at the top of the pyramid. The ones heralding Adrian’s return via the Veiled Path. The way back to Utharia and their control.”
A cold hush fell over the group. Connor looked among them, his eyes narrowing. “Tell us more about what you’re thinking.”
Xiathen hesitated, his gaze shifting to the watching townsfolk. “Not here. Not before them.” He turned to Adrian. “You both must hear it, but in private.”
Adrian felt Connor’s gaze on him before meeting it. Something like resolve, mixed with dread, passed between them. “Fine,” Connor said. “Let’s take this inside.”
In the Athenaeum, Xiathen raised a hand. “This is not simply a rescue mission anymore. The Council will come again. Stronger. More prepared. And if they do—”
“They’ll have to deal with both of us,” Connor stated firmly. Then he glanced at Adrian. “Valours aren’t only titles. They chose us for a reason.”
Adrian exhaled. “I don’t know whether I should be flattered or terrified.”
“Both,” Connor admitted as he held Adrian’s gaze.
Adrian tore away first, his pulse racing. “We need a plan.”
Connor nodded. “Aye. And we start by finding where the Nightwrought have taken Irial.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Adrian asked carefully.
Connor glanced down at Adrian’s pocket, the one holding Irial’s charm. “That thing still glowing?”
Adrian pulled it out. The sigil pulsed faintly, less bright now than when he had picked it up. Adrian inhaled sharply. “It’s reacting.”
“Reacting to what?” Fraser asked.
“To its bonded,” Adrian murmured. “It’s pulling toward her.”
Connor’s jaw set. “Then we follow it.”
“It won’t be a straight path,” Xiathen warned. “The Nightwrought walk in folds and angles. What seems near may be far.”
“We’re Kings. We aren’t good with people telling us no,” Connor said.
Adrian turned the charm over in his palm. The sigil pulsed again, warm and insistent. He looked up into Connor’s eyes. “Fine,” Adrian said. “We follow it.” He motioned to Xiathen and Fraser. “I think we need you both.”
Xiathen nodded.
“Aye,” said Fraser. “I’m with ya.”
Adrian stepped out of The Dry Pig, into the cold air of Glengáill, the others behind him. The charm glowed softly in Adrian’s hand. An echo of the rend, a promise of danger, and the first thread in a path they couldn’t walk alone.