Chapter 5 #3
Elion held aside a curtain of vines for me to step through. There it was—the Bondward Shrine.
The shrine was not a place for ordinary folk.
It was old—older than Caelora’s proud stone.
Hidden by design and guarded by tradition, its secrets were known only to us.
Bondwards taught their apprentices and swore them to silence.
If you broke the oath, death in the Maw was your destiny.
The ritual work we performed here was forbidden to all but Saber Warriors and Bondwards.
The shrine sat half-emerged between the roots, a ring of standing stones carved with worn moon and sun sigils. At its center stood a low altar, blackened by countless nights of brewing. Shallow grooves were cut into the rock to catch the moonlight as if it were water.
Above us, the trees opened enough for the moonlight to spill through. It hung high in the sky—full and bright. Silver light filtered through the canopy and settled upon the altar.
Elion set our supplies down with reverent precision beside the shrine. I followed. “Tonight,” he said, his voice quiet in honor of the wild, “the moon is strong. I will attempt to teach you the ritual to create an ancient Elixir.”
“Thank you for trusting me with this. What can I do to help?”
“Before we start. I must warn you, when I tried to make it last time, it drained me of nearly all my magic.”
That should have frightened me more than it did. Instead, it lit a stubborn fire in me.
“Are you telling me you’ve never successfully made it before?” I asked. Elion was the most capable Bondward of Caelora. If he couldn’t make it, why would he believe I could?
“That’s right. In the past, I’ve tried it once before, but I wasn’t strong enough.
I’ve always known you are more powerful than I ever was, but you were too young.
So I’ve waited until you were ready. Your magic is very volatile—like your temper, but I have faith in you.
Together, we can complete it. I’m certain of it. ”
His attention lingered on me with pride, and something in me steadied under it.
The wild was silent around us as we began crushing the herbs.
We had brought lunathorn caps, moonvein roots, and silverbind fungus.
My hands were sure, my movements precise.
We ground the luminous caps and pale roots together until they formed a paste.
We added the powder of dried fungus, which clung to my skin like dust. The mixture began to smell faintly metallic.
At last, Elion added measured drops from the vials we’d brought. Each was thick and potent, the oil carrying notes of citrus and smoke. The resin that formed glimmered in the moonlight. It thinned into a liquid that bubbled faintly when breathed upon.
With that, the first step of the ritual was complete. The base was made. Now our magic would have to join with the moon’s to finalize it.
So far, the ritual was familiar to me. Nothing seemed out of place. Before I could question it, Elion rose and lifted his hands toward the moon. I mirrored him, opening my palms and spreading my fingers high.
He began to hum, a low vibration that settled into the stones. I recognized the rite and joined him. When our humming softened into a whispered incantation, the air chilled, and I felt the familiar sensation of moonlight entering me.
Elion closed his eyes, and I did the same, allowing the magic to flow through me. The moonlight felt liquid, coursing through my veins before streaming down my arms and gathering in my palms.
Together, we knelt before the mixture on the altar and lowered our hands toward it. I opened my eyes. Our hands were glowing, pale light radiating into the mixture. The violet hue began to shift, turning into a vibrant green.
My breath hitched as the final tendrils of magic left me. When the hum faded, my hands trembled with the aftershock as exhaustion washed through me.
Elion took the bowl carefully, studying the liquid as though reading it. Then his eyes rose to mine, and he smiled.
“A job well done.”
“So that’s it? This is just a regular cure. We’ve done this many times before.”
“No.” He set the mixture down and reached for the strange satchel.
Taking his Bondward insignia, he fitted it into the lock and turned it twice.
It clicked softly as it opened. I glimpsed dark glass nestled inside beside a journal and folded papers.
He lifted the glass, wrapped in cloth for me to see.
“The final ingredient must be added . And the final incantation must be spoken.”
A warning prickled at the back of my neck. “Is this the part that will fully drain us?”
“Yes. Though not us. You,” he said solemnly. “It will take everything you have. If it takes too much, I will interrupt. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Elion… I’m not sure about this. Are we even allowed to create it? It sounds… different from what we’ve done before.”
He lifted the vial, turning it in the moonlight. Whatever lay inside didn’t reflect like ordinary liquid. It seemed to swallow the light. A dozen questions pressed against my lips. Whatever he was creating, it was no ordinary elixir. “What—”
“This,” he interrupted, and something in his tone shifted, “this is essential to what I’ve been working on. It has cost me all of my savings. It is essential to our magic. To—”
My eyes snapped toward the vines we’d come through as rustling came from the canopy. It wasn’t the stir of leaves, and it didn’t sound like the steps of a harmless animal. The footsteps were heavy—like iron boots.
Elion jerked his head toward it. “Stay back,” he ordered. “And take your dagger.”
My hand flew to my thigh and closed around my father’s blade. Then my piercing flared. A cold, biting sensation radiated through me in a violent wave. My breath quickened as I understood what it meant—or rather, who.
“Elion—” I whispered, reaching for him, but he didn’t listen.
He moved toward the bushes anyway, silent as a shadow, lifting one hand in warning for me not to follow. Stay, he mouthed.
He reached the edge of the bush and something exploded from it.
A figure clad in steel struck him hard. There was a flash of movement, metal on metal, then the brutal crack of a sword hilt slamming into Elion’s head.
He went down like a cut string.
“Elion!” I lunged forward without thinking, the world narrowing as his body crumpled to the forest floor.
Before I could reach him, hands seized me from behind.
Iron arms locked around my waist, dragging me back against a chest clad in steel.
I kicked and twisted. I tried to swing my dagger, but my wrist was caught and wrenched upward.
A cloth slammed over my mouth and nose. It reeked of something sweet and rotten. I turned my face away, fighting for air, refusing to inhale. But it was everywhere. The fumes seeped into me through the involuntary gasp I drew when I ran out of breath.
The forest began to tilt, my limbs growing numb. Moonlight smeared into pale streaks between the trees. I clawed at the cloth in a last desperate attempt and raked my nails across the arm at my throat, but the darkness was closing in.
A low voice slid into my ear, soft as silk. “So stubborn.”
My stomach dropped even as my mind began to slip. That voice. I’d been right—the warning from my piercing. The Praetor. But how had he found this sacred place?
Sweet words brushed my ear, too blurred to make sense of, as though he were soothing a skittish animal rather than stealing me like prey. I tried to bite, to scream, to snarl—anything—but my jaw wouldn’t obey.
The last thing I heard before the night swallowed me was his breath at my ear and the distant, terrible silence of Elion’s body on the forest floor.
I drifted in and out of consciousness as a cart rocked beneath me, wood groaning over stone. Awareness came in shallow waves I couldn’t hold onto. Each time I surfaced, the world blurred, my vision swallowed by black.
A hand moved through my hair, stroking me. It felt familiar in a way that made something in me recoil, even through the haze.
The man whispered something, but I couldn’t hear him. “There now…” he murmured. “You fought it longer than most, very admirable.”
Decimus . I tried to pull away, to shift my head, but my body didn’t respond.
“You do not need Elion’s shadow anymore,” he continued. “I have determined that you are ready to begin your official duties in the Ludaryn. My wife already resents you enough. Keeping you beneath my roof would become… inconvenient.”
His fingers brushed my scalp again.
“No… you will become a Bondward in truth now. But I will make sure that you remain unbound, for the moment. The Saber Warriors,” his voice lowered with annoyance, “are not worthy of something so pure.”
The cart lurched, dragging me with it as darkness claimed me again, his words trailing after me.
“They can have you once I have had my fill.”