Chapter 6
T he ache behind my eyes sharpened each time Rhian’s chest paused between breaths.
The healers had washed the blood from his ribs and closed the worst of the torn flesh, but cold remained beneath the bandages. It seeped through the linen and into my palm whenever I touched him.
Bramble lay curled against Rhian’s neck with his nose tucked beneath the edge of his jaw.
He had refused the lure of dried berries, water, and any other attempt to remove him from the narrow bed.
Fear moved through our bond in slow, exhausted waves, tightening whenever Rhian’s breathing faltered and easing only after his chest rose again.
It was a sentiment I understood all too well.
And still, still my mind kept drifting just beyond our gates to silver eyes and moonlit skin.
“It has spread.” Healer Nessa crouched across from me and peeled back the corner of the bandage.
A thin indigo line had surfaced beneath Rhian’s skin. It followed the curve of his lowest rib, faint enough that I had to lean closer before its sheen caught in the amber light.
My fingers tightened around his wrist. “That wasn’t there before.”
“No.” Nessa pressed two fingers beside the mark. Verdant light gathered beneath her palm, then stopped before reaching the wound. Her mouth tightened as she tried again. “His bleeding has slowed, and his heartbeat is steady. But whatever this infection is, it’s moving fast.”
“Can’t you stop it?”
Her auburn brows knitted together. “We are trying.”
I nodded. Of course she was. They all were.
I pulled my hand from Rhian and traced the design I already knew by heart. Whatever this power was, it felt as alive as my Wild was, and it had responded strongly, both to Xandros and to the indigo burning beneath Rhian’s skin.
A rough breath scraped from the adjoining hollow.
I twisted toward the woven screen separating the beds.
Roots had grown through one another to give the healers room to work around Torren while keeping his body apart from Rhian’s.
His boots and ruined cloak lay in a dark heap beyond the opening.
Water clouded with blood filled a bowl beneath the bed.
Torren had not woken once since the healers brought him to the infirmary.
Deep wounds crossed his side, though none matched the bite torn into Rhian. The vines inked along Torren’s arm had split beneath his skin. Black traced their curled leaves and climbed toward his shoulder while indigo glimmered through the breaks.
A healer pressed both palms to his bare chest. The Mother Tree’s vines cradling the bed drew away from his body by the width of a finger.
Bramble lifted his head.
Something scraped against the edge of our bond, like fingers sliding against the branch of a tree. They hesitated for a moment, then pulled hard toward the sealed eastern passage.
I caught the edge of Rhian’s bed before I could rise. I cursed my leg as pain shot up my thigh.
“Did you feel that?” I looked at Bramble.
His ears flattened as he crept into my lap, curling up into a tiny bundle of fur.
Nessa followed my gaze toward the wall. “Feel what?”
The pull had already faded, leaving a raw emptiness behind my ribs.
“I– I’m not sure.” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
Before Nessa could respond, the passage opened.
Caelan stood between the parted roots with his shoulders rigid and blood darkening one cuff from carrying Torren into the infirmary. His gaze went straight to Rhian.
The rigid line of his shoulders shifted with the next shallow rise of his son’s chest.
Caelan stopped beside me. His hand closed around the bedframe, pressing his knuckles until they turned white against the wood. “When did that appear?”
“Moments ago. I sent for you as soon as I saw it.” Nessa lowered the linen carefully over Rhian’s side. “His heart remains steady, but the infection has begun moving beyond the wound.”
Caelan’s fingers hovered over Rhian’s hair before curling into his palm. His chest rose through one slow breath, and his shoulders straightened. “The Circle has begun questioning the fae. Maren wants you at the eastern wall.”
My fingers tightened around Rhian’s wrist.
Heat gathered beneath the bandage on my palm, followed by a steady pull toward the passage behind Caelan.
If Xandros had seen the same sickness consuming his people, he might recognize what was happening inside Rhian before our healers did.
Rhian’s pulse fluttered beneath my fingertips. I held it for one more beat before letting go.
Nessa replaced my hand with hers. “I will send for you the moment anything changes.”
I touched her shoulder, thanking her as the pull beneath my palm sharpened as I turned toward the passage.
Bramble lifted his head.
I slid one hand beneath him, intending to leave him beside Rhian, but his claws caught my sleeve.
He climbed my arm and settled across my shoulders, his narrow body pressed tightly against my neck.
Some of the tightness around my ribs eased beneath his familiar weight, and I pressed my cheek briefly into the fur behind his ear.
Cold had replaced the smoke outside the Mother Tree.
The watchfires along the gates had burned down to red coals, and the gray edge of dawn showed through the branches beyond the Grove.
Families slept beneath shelters grown from roots and broad leaves, their Kindred curled among them while Thornwardens moved along the walls with weapons drawn.
The closer I came to the eastern gate, the warmer my palm grew.
I kept it hidden against my stomach.
Maren waited on the rise with three other elders. Caelan climbed beside her while I stopped a pace behind them. The gates remained sealed from root to crown, though several branches had drawn apart enough to leave narrow spaces between them.
The Moon Fae occupied the ground just beyond.
The torn white banner had been fixed between two silverwood spears.
Blankets from the Grove covered the damp earth beneath it.
One of the fae lay on her side near the center, her pale face turned toward the heat of a small sheltered flame brazier.
Several knelt beside her, one with a cup pressed carefully to her mouth.
Xandros stood at the edge of their camp, bare from the waist up, with one male and one female speaking quietly with him.
Moonlight traced the lean planes of his back and shoulders, catching on the constellations spread across his pale skin and winding around both biceps. For one breath, he might have been carved from the same white stone as the towers I had seen in his world.
His back shifted with a careful breath, drawing my gaze to the dark bandage wrapped around his chest as he turned. Fresh blood had soaked through near his collarbone. His white-blond hair hung in uneven strands around his lowered face.
His gaze wordlessly found mine, as if he had sensed my presence.
The star burned brighter beneath my bandage, flooding my arm with waves of heat.
His fingers flexed once at his side.
Maren planted her staff against the ground, and my attention snapped toward her. “You claim the passage opened without your control.”
“I claim nothing.” Xandros' voice carried through the openings in the wall. Weariness roughened its edges without weakening it. “It opened. We crossed before it closed again.”
“Following her.” Griffin angled his staff toward me.
Xandros pulled a fresh tunic over his head with the aid of the male beside him. His face tightened as the fabric dragged across the bandage beneath it. “Following the thread that remained after the rift closed.”
Heat climbed into my wrist. My fingers curled against the linen.
Maren’s gaze followed the movement. Her fingers tightened around her staff before she looked back at Xandros. “And where did you find Torren?”
Xandros held her gaze. “In Asterra.”
My stomach dropped. My injured leg wavered, and I shifted my weight before it could buckle.
Caelan went rigid beside me. “How did one of my Thornwardens cross the Veil?”
Xandros turned his attention to the First Thorn.
“I believe one of the Marred found a weakness in the Veil and dragged him through before it closed.” He met my gaze through the gate.
“The creature you fought at the rift was an animal once. There is a sickness spreading through Asterra that changes whatever it enters. Animals. Trees. Our people.”
The beast’s narrow skull rose behind my eyes. Its limbs had bent at angles no living body should have carried, and indigo had shone between the rows of teeth snapping above my face.
“What makes you believe one took Torren?” Caelan’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword.
“We found evidence of an attack.” Xandros glanced toward the Mother Tree, where Torren lay beyond sight. “His boots and feet were shredded, and there were claw marks across the ground behind him with indigo blood dried inside them.”
My stomach lurched.
“You believe the creature knew where to find a passage?” Maren adjusted her grip on her staff, her knuckles whitening from the pressure.
Xandros shrugged with a wince of pain.
“The Marred cannot tear through an intact Veil. But they do gather where the corruption has already weakened it and somehow force themselves through whatever space opens. What I need to know is whether your guardian saw how it happened. If he wakes, he may be able to tell us more.”
Pressure tightened through my bond with Bramble, pulling my attention east. His claws tightened in my collar as both our faces turned past Xandros, toward the forest beyond.
Maren looked at me. “You felt something.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
I pressed my palm against Bramble’s side. His heart raced beneath my hand.
“It started in the infirmary.”
Maren looked toward the eastern forest, the lines around her mouth growing deeper.
Griffin took a step forward, his weathered hands gripping the edge of the wall. “Your own companions were wounded. What made one of our guardians worth the risk?”
“He was still alive.”