Chapter 5
“ R oot entwines star.”
The words settled over the sanctuary.
Maren stared down at them.
Fear remained carved into her weathered features.
I closed my fingers, but the light spilled through the gaps and flashed across her robes. I didn’t fail to notice that the star’s lines pulsed with my heartbeat.
“What does it mean?” I closed my eyes and let out a hitched breath.
Her gaze lifted to mine.
Behind her, Caelan stood tall, one hand pressed to the hilt of his sword. No one answered.
The heat in my palm sharpened. “You know the prophecy.”
“We know the words.” Maren’s grip tightened around her staff. “But not their meaning. Prophecies rarely reveal themselves before the time is right.”
The pulse in my palm climbed into my wrist. I folded my fingers around the light before it could spread any farther.
Maren looked toward the open canopy, the lanterns now aglow on the walls. Black briars covered the moon above us, their hooked shadows cutting across the sanctuary walls.
“We may not understand the prophecy yet,” she said, “but we cannot ignore what stands before us. The Briar Moon has risen. The Veil has opened.” Her gaze lowered to my palm. “And now, one of our Thornwardens carries a star beneath her very skin.”
The light pulsed through the wound.
I closed my eyes, and the Moon Fae’s hand closed around my wrist again, warm and solid against the storm dragging us toward his dying forest. His starlight had raced beneath my palm before the rupture tore him away.
“The Moon Fae might know what it means.”
When I opened my eyes, I found every face had turned toward me.
An elder stepped down from her chair. Her white hair hung in a long braid over one shoulder, and the vine markings along her throat had faded nearly to gray.
She was older than Maren, leaner through the frame, with a pale scar cutting from the corner of her mouth toward her jaw.
A hawk Kindred rested on her shoulder, its sharp gaze moving over the gathered Druids.
“You would seek answers from a fae?” The disdain dripping from her words was enough to make my skin crawl.
“I would seek them from the only other person who was there.”
“And how do you propose we reach him?” Her robes whispered across the floor as she approached. “Shall we tear another hole through the Veil and invite more of those monsters into our forest?”
Split jaws flashed behind my eyes, snapping inches above my face. My stomach clenched. I folded my fingers over the star, but luminous rays slipped between them and washed across the elder’s robes.
“He carried the other half of whatever happened when the divide opened.” I tightened my hand around the light. “How can we expect to understand the prophecy if we refuse to speak to him?”
Her mouth tightened. “You assume he would tell us the truth.”
I ground my teeth. “I assume he wants answers too.”
“You are naive.” she snapped.
I narrowly resisted the urge to call her an old hag. “He helped me close the rupture while his people were still fleeing behind him.”
The female who had fallen among the silver trees flashed through my mind, followed by the ruined forest and the people scrambling through it. He had been standing in the middle of all that destruction, with our world open in front of him.
“He could have crossed into our forest,” I continued. “He could have left the roots tangled between our worlds and let the decay spread into ours. He did neither. Why?”
“Perhaps he wanted part of his power left inside you. Perhaps you are a greater pawn than you realize.”
My fingers snapped shut. The mark flared beneath them.
Bramble shifted across my shoulders, pressing his narrow body against the back of my neck as unease tightened through our bond.
Caelan stepped between Elder Hag and me. “We have no way to know whether the mark was intentional.”
“We have no way to know anything,” I countered, “unless we find him.”
Caelan’s gaze sharpened. “Have you forgotten your vows so quickly? You would lead a Moon Fae to the heart of the Deepwood, to Mother herself, and for what? Because you have confused mutual survival with an act of nobility?”
I ground my teeth. The cut in my hand threatened to reopen beneath the strain of my clenched fist. “I am not asking anyone to trust him?—”
“But you are asking us to search for him.” The Elder Hag cut me off again, her gaze narrowed as she stepped closer. “And to risk the life of everyone in the Grove in the process.”
“I am asking how many more animals must turn against the Mother Tree before we admit that what we know is not enough.”
A grim silence fell between us all.
The elder’s eyes dropped to where the star was hidden inside my fist.
Maren planted her staff between us. “The Circle will decide what may be risked.”
My jaw tightened. “And while you decide?”
“The patrol searching for Torren will examine the dead ground beyond the eastern boundary.” Caelan’s attention shifted toward the passage. “If any trace of the breach remains, they will find it and report back.”
Torren had been missing since before the moon grew thorns. Rhian had nearly bled out searching for him.
Caelan’s gaze met mine again. The strain around his mouth deepened as his fingers flexed over the hilt of his sword.
Maren looked toward the sealed passage beneath the Mother Tree. “For now, you must rest, Verena. The Circle needs to discuss our path forward.”
The dismissal scraped against my temper, but Rhian’s pale face rose behind my eyes. I needed to see his chest rise. To feel his pulse beneath my fingers and hear a healer tell me he had not worsened while I stood beneath the moon debating prophecies.
I turned toward the passage just as a whistle split through the Grove. Three sharp notes rising from the gate. Caelan’s sword cleared its sheath.
Roots peeled apart along the sanctuary wall before he reached them. Shouts carried through the opening, followed by boots striking the packed earth outside.
A second whistle answered closer to the sanctuary.
Bramble went rigid.
Fear whipped through our bond, followed by a hard pull toward the eastern wall. His claws caught in my collar as his head lifted toward the sound.
Cold air struck my face as we left the Mother Tree’s warmth. The briar-covered moon cast broken shadows across the living walls surrounding the Grove. Watchfires burned beside the eastern path, filling the air with wet smoke.
A Thornwarden shoved through the crowd toward us. Mud covered his legs to the knee. Blood streaked the front of his cloak, though his stride remained steady.
“First Thorn.”
Caelan caught his shoulder. “Report.”
“Strangers at the gate.”
The star blazed beneath my closed fingers.
“I think they’re fae,” the guardian said. “They all have long pointed ears, strange eyes, and stars on their skin. And even in the shadows, there’s a silver cast to them.”
Maren followed. I pushed after them, ignoring the pull of the stitches in my thigh as the Thornwarden fell into step beside Caelan.
“How many?” Caelan kept his gaze ahead, sword still drawn in his hand.
“Six. They stopped just outside the gates, waving a white banner.” The guardian’s breath still came hard from his run. “Their leader asked for the female who closed the rupture.”
My pulse pounded against my ribcage. He had survived.
His bloodied face rose with painful clarity, silver eyes holding mine while his hand pinned mine against the bucking root. Warmth spread through the star in my palm, less painful than before, and I pressed my fingers closed around it.
“They brought someone with them. One of ours, I think. There was too much blood to see clearly through the wall.”
Caelan’s stride lengthened.
I forced my injured leg to keep pace. Heat spread beneath the bandage around my thigh, but the eastern gate was already visible between the immense roots ahead.
Thornwardens crowded the living wall. Archers stood along the ridges above it with arrows fixed on the ground below, while others waited among the tangled foliage with flint blades drawn or Wild glowing at their fingertips.
Caelan climbed the rise above the gate.
The guardian stationed there stepped aside, giving us a clear view through the woven branches.
Seven figures stood below.
A female near the back held a strip of white cloth above her head. Wind snapped its torn edge around a staff of silver wood. The others wore dark armor streaked with ash and blood, their weapons sheathed at their sides.
Gold constellations crossed the skin above their collars and wound over their hands. Several burned brightly beneath the thorn-covered moon. Others had faded until only weak points of light remained.
And the male from the rift stood at their center.
Ash coated his armor from one shoulder to the opposite hip, but the constellations along his throat still glowed with the same gold that had raced through the root between us.
His piercing gaze moved over the Thornwardens lining the wall as if he was searching for someone.
When they found me, he stopped.
The mark within my fist burned brighter.
His shoulders lowered with one measured breath. His eyes froze at my closed hand and the light shining between my fingers.
Caelan stepped to the edge of the rise. “Name yourself.”
The male looked away from my fist.
“Xandros Umbriel. Prince of Asterra.”
A sharp breath sounded behind me.
Griffin had gone rigid beside Maren, both hands clenched around his staff.
“Umbriel.” His mouth twisted around the name. “I see that line has refused to die out.”
Xandros' face gave nothing away.
The name stirred something in my memory.
Umbriel .
I had heard it long before I knew there was still anyone alive to carry it.
House Umbriel belonged to the histories we were taught as children—the Moon Fae rulers who had taken from the Deepwood until the forest itself began to fail.
Their hunger had nearly destroyed what our ancestors were forced to seal away to protect.
And the male who had held my wrist through the rupture carried their name.
Heat pulsed through the star in my palm.
His silver eyes found mine.
“You asked for one of my Thornwardens.” Caelan spoke above the quiet murmurs.
“The first breach left a thread of her energy behind.” His gaze stayed on me. “When the passage opened again, I followed it.”
Bowstrings tightened along the wall. Caelan’s hand remained wrapped around his sword. “Why?”
Xandros looked toward the figures behind him. “We found one of yours before we found your gate.”
The fae shifted apart. Dark green leather appeared between two armored bodies.
My stomach clenched.
A male sagged between two broad-shouldered fae behind Xandros, his boots dragging through the dead grass. Mud encased his trousers halfway up his legs, and blood had soaked the left side of his cloak.
A sleeve pulled up on his forearm showed the vines inked into him had split and blackened beneath his skin.
“No.” I moved down the rise before Caelan could stop me. Pain tore through my thigh and pitched my weight forward, but a root lifted beneath my boot and held me upright.
One of the fae shifted the wounded male higher.
His head rolled to the side.
Dirt streaked his face, and blood had dried from his hairline to the dark stubble along his jaw.
“Torren.”
Caelan came down the rise behind me, his gaze fixed on the blood soaking Torren’s cloak.
“Open the lower passage.”
The roots at the base of the wall unwound just far enough for two Thornwardens to pass through. Every bow remained trained on the fae.
“You will surrender our guardian,” Caelan said. “Then you will remain beyond the wall while the Circle determines what is to be done with you.”
Xandros' expression did not change. “He needs a healer.”
“He will have one.”
“And my people need water and shelter.”
Caelan glanced toward the figures behind him. Several swayed beneath the weight of their armor, their golden markings dim against their skin.
“You will be given what you need, but you will not enter the Grove.”
The two Thornwardens crossed the threshold with a woven litter between them.
The fae lowered Torren onto it carefully. One kept a hand behind his neck while the other eased his wounded side onto the roots, taking more care with him than I expected from someone surrounded by drawn bows.
As they pulled away, indigo light flashed beneath the skin along Torren’s ribs. My stomach clenched.
The Thornwardens lifted the litter and hurried him toward the Mother Tree. I took one step after them before heat spread across my palm.
I looked back.
Xandros remained beyond the wall beneath the tattered white banner. Blood streaked one side of his face, and the ash dulled the dark armor across his shoulders. He watched Torren disappear into the Grove before his gaze returned to me.
Our eyes locked, and my pulse stumbled.
Those same silver eyes that had held me steady through the breach moved over my face, then lowered to the hand curled against my stomach. Gold seeped between my fingers. His head tilted slightly as he studied the light; then his gaze lifted to mine again.
Branches and vines wove across the opening, closing the Grove between us.
I should have followed Torren.
Instead, I remained there until the living wall swallowed Xandros from sight, and the star beneath my skin burned brighter.