Chapter 4
N ettle stitches tugged at my thigh beneath the fresh bandage, and salve burned along my cheek. I pulled on a clean tunic behind the curtain the healers had drawn around one corner of the infirmary.
They had ushered me inside shortly after taking Rhian below, though every attempt I made to follow him deeper had been stopped. The healers needed room to work, and apparently bleeding on their floor did not earn me an exception.
Afterward, they’d scrubbed Rhian’s blood from my hands until my skin was raw and the water ran clear, though dark crescents still stained the beds of my nails.
Fresh linen covered the torn skin across my palm.
Heat pulsed beneath it, faint but persistent.
I flexed my fingers, trying to catch the strange sensation before it disappeared again.
Bramble stayed close while I dressed, his narrow body pressed against my ankle. Every few breaths, his head turned toward the sealed passage leading deeper beneath the Mother Tree.
When the healers finally released me, I had nowhere to go but back up. Bramble followed at my heels as I climbed the living root passage into the sanctuary, leaving Rhian somewhere beneath us where I still wasn’t allowed to follow.
Rhian was breathing.
He was still breathing.
And he would keep breathing.
I repeated that fact to myself like a mantra as the sanctuary filled around us.
The sanctuary had grown within the living heart of the Mother Tree. Ancient bark curved around the hollow, while bowls of glowing moss hung from trailing vines and filled the chamber with soft sage light.
High overhead, immense branches wove together into a vaulted canopy and thick sap-lanterns twinkled, leaving only narrow glimpses of the sky until the Mother Tree chose to part them.
Beneath our feet, her roots stretched deeper into the earth, cradling some of the oldest chambers of the Grove, including the infirmary.
Every space along the living walls had been taken. Druids from settlements across the Deepwood, their Kindred held close or crouched against their legs.
All of our gazes remained fixed on the center of the hollow, where the dead beast lay across a sheet of cured leather. Indigo light still shimmered beneath its skin.
Elder Maren lowered the tip of her staff toward it. She held one of the Circle’s seats, entrusted with preserving the Deepwood’s oldest laws, histories, and prophecies.
A thin root uncurled from the sanctuary floor and crept across the stone. Green light moved beneath its bark until it reached the edge of the leather.
The smallest tendrils twisted away.
Maren pressed one palm against the floor. Verdant light crossed the vines along her arm and sank into the sanctuary.
The root reached forward.
Shades of midnight and violet flashed beneath the beast’s closed eyes.
The root recoiled so violently that it split against the stone. Blackened sap struck the leather and smoked.
Sula surged upright with a roar. Ivy buried both hands in the fur around her neck and held her until she settled into a low growl.
Murmurs echoed through the hollow.
Elder Griffin rose from his ancient chair. “Destroy it.”
A few others echoed this call, but Maren simply shook her head, keeping her staff between the corpse and the gathered Druids. “We will not hack at the first thing we fear like humans startled in the dark.”
Griffin’s mouth tightened.
“We know nothing about this creature or the power inside it,” she continued, resting the butt of her staff on the ground with a faint tap. “Until we do, no one touches it.”
The sanctuary quieted, though the indigo beneath the beast’s skin continued to pulse. A small whimper left Bramble as he wound himself around my neck, pressing so close his claws caught in my collar.
First Thorn Caelan stood before the Circle with one hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. Several silver strands had escaped the binding that usually kept his beard neat. His gaze kept returning to the passage beneath the Mother Tree, toward the infirmary where his son lay unconscious.
When he spoke, his voice carried easily through the sanctuary.
“All patrols have returned.”
The murmurs died down.
“Every village has answered the call. Until we understand what has entered the Deepwood, no one leaves the Grove. The outer gates will remain closed. Additional Thornwardens will take the walls, and every family will remain within the Mother Tree’s protection until further notice.”
A ripple of unease moved through the gathered sanctuary.
“The forest has always protected us,” someone whispered.
“And now,” Caelan said as he gestured to the great tree’s walls, “Mother will protect us.”
His stony gaze shifted toward Maren.
She stepped into the center of the sanctuary, her carved staff resting lightly against the living stone. “Open the canopy.”
The Mother Tree answered.
Ancient roots groaned overhead as they unwound from one another. Bark scraped across bark until the woven ceiling parted, exposing the night sky above the sanctuary.
No one spoke as cold moonlight spilled into the hollow.
Black briars covered the face of the moon. They reached inward from every edge, their hooked lengths weaving together into a prickly crown that strangled the pale light beneath its surface.
Maren stared upward.
“The Prophecy of Thorns…” she whispered.
The words barely reached the nearest rows, yet silence spread through the sanctuary all the same.
“Our ancestors carried this warning from one generation to the next.” Maren’s grip tightened around her staff.
“They prayed none of us would live to see it fulfilled.”
The words pulled me back through the tear in the sky.
“That might not be true.” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Those same thorns had covered an unfamiliar moon above a silver forest while people fled beneath it with children in their arms and the wounded draped across their shoulders.
I had been too focused on Rhian, the creature, and the roots tearing between our worlds to wonder how long that moon had hung above them.
Had prophecies been fulfilled or broken in their realm?
But they had seen it before us.
The sanctuary went silent, and every face turned toward me.
Caelan’s brow furrowed. “Verena?”
Heat climbed from my neck into my cheeks. My fingers closed around the bandage wrapped across my palm as I tried to gather the memory into something I could explain.
“The people beyond the tear had already seen it.” I looked up at the black thorns crossing our moon. “The same briars covered theirs.”
Elder Griffin leaned forward. “You saw another moon?”
“Yes.” My pulse stumbled beneath the linen around my hand. “It hung above a silver forest where people were running. I don’t know how long the thorns had been there, but it looked exactly like ours.”
Maren stepped down from her place in the Circle, the butt of her staff scraping the ground.
“Every kingdom in Elderen lies beneath the same moon.” She stopped in front of me. “The Deepwood. The Human Lands. The Wolves in the north. The Veil does not divide one part of Elderen from another.”
Her knuckles went white around her staff. “It separates Elderen from Selvara.”
My lungs tightened around my next breath. “The fae realm.”
Maren nodded. “If you saw another moon, then the rupture crossed the Veil.”
She stared past me for a moment before continuing. “Long ago, the Moon Fae drew on the Deepwood until whole stretches of forest weakened. When our ancestors tried to close the passages, they fought to keep them open.”
“And the fae themselves?” Elder Griffin was standing on wobbling feet, his staff outstretched like a crooked finger. “What did you see?”
With a blink, the dying forest returned: silver branches wrenching beneath a wind that had torn through both worlds. People screaming and fleeing. And that stranger who helped me close the rupture.
“They were afraid.” I could still see the terrified faces, the crying children, and the wounded.
All my life, I had heard horror stories of the fae who once dominated our land, how they were vicious and cruel.
But during the storm, I had seen fear. Pain.
Desperation. People who had just as much to lose, and just as much worth saving, as we did.
I glanced at the creature in the center of the space, and my stomach twisted into knots. “And some of them had indigo light glowing through their skin.”
Uneasy voices stirred around the hollow. Bramble pressed closer to my neck, sensing fear welling inside me.
“Were they all marked by it?” Maren asked.
“No.” Heat gathered beneath the linen around my palm. “One of the males”—I saw his golden sword, hair whipping in the air, hand outstretched—“carried a different light. He was marked like we are.”
I held up my arms, allowing my vines to glow beneath the mosslight. They twisted and grew, the long coils and leaves gleaming like emeralds as I called on my power.
“He was blessed with Wild?” Griffin almost looked as offended as he did confused.
I shook my head. “No, not with Wild. It was something else. Constellations covered his skin. They glimmered like?—”
“Living starlight.” Maren finished for me, her grip tightening around her staff, voice clipped and short.
Griffin’s expression hardened. “Moon Fae.”
The title settled over the memory of the stranger standing beside the rupture, blood tracing his jaw while gold blazed beneath his skin.
“Did he attempt to cross?” Caelan asked worriedly.
“No; he stayed on his side.”
Silence pressed in around me. Several members of the Circle exchanged looks, their doubt plain in the tightened mouths and lowered brows turned my way.
Caelan studied me for another breath. “You’re absolutely certain?”
“Of course I am.” My fingers curled around the bandage. “He killed it before it could kill me.” The sound of his star sword impaling the monster echoed in my mind.
“There had to be a reason.” Griffin descended from his place in the Circle, planting his staff hard against the floor. “Moon Fae do not offer their protection or assistance freely. His presence in our forest was not an accident.”
“But he was never actually in our forest, was he?” Heat bloomed beneath the linen around my palm.
Griffin opened his mouth, but the memory surfaced before he could speak. The creature crushing me into the earth. Rhian bleeding only a few paces away. That starlit blade tearing through the beast while the male who sent it stood wounded in a dying world of his own.
No one else had come. No one else had saved us. No one but him.
The heat sharpened with my anger, and gold seeped through the bandage in thin, bright lines.
“He could have let me die,” I said. “He could have watched Rhian bleed out while our forest collapsed into his. Instead, he killed the beast and stayed long enough to help me close the rupture, even while his own people were fleeing behind him.”
Griffin's expression hardened.
“You witnessed one moment, child.” His voice remained calm, but his mouth was set in a thin line. “I am responsible for remembering a thousand years.”
The words settled heavily between us.
Before either of us could speak again, Maren struck the base of her staff against the living floor with a loud clack. “The Briar Moon is only the beginning.”
The sanctuary fell silent.
She raised a hand toward the black thorns wrapped around the moon.
“When briar crowns moon,” she began, “and root entwines star, the forgotten gates shall open.”
Maren lowered her hand, her chin dipping with the movement. “That is where the prophecy as we know it ends. Every surviving copy is torn at exactly the same place.”
The Mother Tree shuddered beneath our feet, and fire flashed through my palm.
The rupture had been pressing at the edges of my thoughts since it closed, but now one part of it stood out with sudden clarity.
His starlight had raced through the root from one realm while my Wild surged from the other...
I nearly doubled over with the intensity of the burning in my hand.
Gold burned through the linen in branching lines, brightening the bloodstained cloth.
Bramble’s claws tightened against my shoulders. Fear flooded our bond while I crushed my wrist against my stomach and tried to smother the glow with my other hand. It only spread.
“That is enough for tonight.” Maren raised her staff before anyone could question her. “The children need food, warmth, and somewhere to rest before fear spreads any further.”
Uneasy murmuring moved through the sanctuary.
“Guardians, open every lower chamber,” she continued. “Find space for each family beneath Mother, and keep the outer passages sealed. No one leaves the Grove until the Circle understands what has begun.”
The room stirred around us.
Caelan stepped forward and reinforced the order. “Thornwardens will guide you. Keep your Kindred close, and remain within the Grove.”
Druids began filing toward the passages, though more than one gaze lingered on the gold slipping between my fingers.
I lowered my hand and moved with them.
Caelan caught my uninjured arm before I reached the passage.
My body tightened beneath his grip. “I need to check on Rhian.”
The First Thorn shook his head, gently grabbing my other wrist where my clenched fist barely contained the light exploding from my palm.
“And the Circle needs to see that.” He tapped my wrist.
I pulled against him once, but his hold remained firm.
Around us, the last families disappeared into the lower passages. Living roots drew together behind them until only Maren, Caelan, Bramble, and I remained inside the sanctuary along with some Circle members.
Maren’s voice lowered.
“Verena, come.”
Caelan stepped closer. “What is happening to her?”
“I do not know yet.” Maren crossed the hollow, her staff striking softly against the floor. “Verena, open your hand.”
“I can’t.”
My fingers had locked around the pain.
Gold forced itself through the spaces between them, bright enough to stain my knuckles and the front of my tunic with its light.
Maren stopped in front of me. “Remove the bandage.”
My breath shook as I caught the loose end of the linen. The cloth clung to the torn skin beneath it, and pain ripped through my palm when I pulled.
Bramble whimpered beside my ear.
The final layer peeled free.
Eight points of golden light burned beneath the wound.
Fine lines stretched between them, forming a small eight-point star beneath my bloodied skin.
Caelan went still.
Maren’s gaze moved from the starburst in my hand, down to the roots beneath our feet.
“You said your Wild merged with his starlight?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
Maren took a slow breath, the lines around her mouth deepening.
“Root entwines star.”