Chapter 10 #3
Caelan’s shoulder relaxed by a single degree until she continued. “But a second was seen near the twin oaks at the eastern border.”
My feet hit the floor. I was at Caelan’s side in an instant. “Near the standing stone?”
Ivy nodded.
“We lost its tracks before the boundary.” She glanced at her Kindred, pressing one hand into the thick fur beside Sula’s ear. “Something keeps calling her out there. She keeps looking to the east. So do three of the other Kindred.”
Bramble scrambled onto my shoulder. The pressure inside our bond sharpened.
Ivy’s gaze moved to him. “I thought he might be doing the same.”
A rough sound came from Torren’s bed.
Nessa dropped beside him as his fingers dragged across the blanket. His face twisted, and the blackened vines along his arm pulled tight beneath his skin.
“Torren.” She cupped his jaw. “Open your eyes.”
“The marker,” he rasped, his lashes lifting.
Caelan turned. “What about it?”
Torren swallowed, his throat working around a dry breath. “The ground started moving.”
My pulse galloped against my ribs.
“The roots pulled away from the stone.” His fingers curled harder into the blanket. “There was something underneath them.”
“What was it?” I moved closer.
Torren squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know. Marks cut into the stone. Light coming through.”
Heat stirred beneath the bandage around my right hand.
Solan’s fingers began tapping again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The dream clung to the edges of my mind. My father’s palm pressing mine against the crack, right above the ruined carving.
“What do you mean?” I stepped around Caelan.
“The creature reached through.” A shudder raked through him, his ruined leg jerking against the bed. “First claws. Then its head.”
Nessa raised a cup to his mouth, but he turned away.
Solan crouched beside him, examining his wound, placing the back of his hand against his brow. “Slow your breathing.”
Torren dragged in another sharp breath. “I stabbed it and tried to run, but it caught my boot. It pulled me toward the opening.”
Nessa pressed a hand against his chest. “That’s enough. You need to rest now.”
Torren caught her wrist, his body shaking.
“I went through.” The words scraped against his throat
“Through to where?” Caelan asked.
Torren’s eyes found Xandros across the chamber.
“His side.” Then his grip slipped from Nessa’s wrist, and his eyes rolled shut.
Solan lifted an eyelid and held a candle close, while the other healer braced a hand against his ribs. A shallow breath finally lifted his chest.
Across the chamber, Xandros stared at the packed earth beneath Torren’s bed. Gold moved beneath the constellations along his hands.
“You know something.” Caelan tensed, his hand moving toward his blade. “You recognize what he described.”
“Pieces of it.” Xandros lifted his gaze, scratching a thumb along his jawline.
“The Moon King sent me to investigate what was waking the old roads.”
Caelan’s entire body went still. Alarm flashed across his face before he struck the wall with his fist and turned to Ivy.
“Bring Elder Maren. Now.”
The wall parted enough to reveal several elders waiting in the outer passage. Amber resin still filmed the opening, blurring their faces and washing the edges of their robes in gold.
Maren rested both hands over her staff. “The Moon King sent you.”
Xandros faced her. “He did.”
“You told us the surviving thread led you here. You asked for aid for your wounded and offered aid to ours.” Her fingers tightened around the carved wood. “You neglected to mention that you crossed under royal command.”
“I concealed nothing about the condition of my people or what I could offer yours.”
Griffin leaned closer to the amber opening. “You entered beneath our roots under false pretenses.”
Maren kept her gaze on Xandros. “You gave us the truth cut carefully around the part that might have kept you outside.”
Gold brightened beneath the constellations along his throat.
“My people needed shelter. And yours needed knowledge your healers did not have.” His hands remained open at his sides. “Both were true.”
“And the rest?” Maren asked.
Xandros drew a slow breath. “Ancient structures began stirring beneath Asterra before the Briar Moon reached your sky. The Moon King ordered me to find what was waking them and return with the cause, if it could be recovered.”
His final words pressed against my throat like a noose.
Return with the cause.
My right hand curled over the luminary beneath its bandage.
Maren’s eyes dropped to the movement. “You believe that cause is Verena.”
Xandros stiffened. “I did not know the thread belonged to a person when I crossed.”
“But you know now,” Griffin said.
The prince looked at me.
“I know our powers left a connection behind when we closed the rupture.” He rubbed his hands together, as if warding off a chill. “But I do not know whether Verena woke the passages, whether the Briar Moon did, or whether something beneath your forest was already beginning to stir.”
“This thread between you…” Caelan’s grip tightened around the hilt of his sword. “How did it bring you here exactly?”
“A temporary fracture opened in Asterra. The connection passed through it, and my companions followed me across before it sealed.”
“Can you open another?”
Xandros gave a single shake of his head. “The thread gave me direction. It is a compass, not a key.”
That thread pulled toward him, as if speaking of it was calling it to him. Golden light seeped through my bandage, and I pressed my hand against my stomach until it dimmed.
“Then you are stranded.” Griffin’s voice echoed through the wall.
“For now.”
Caelan glanced toward Torren’s bed. “And you think the marker he described can return you.”
Xandros studied the dead vines beneath Torren’s skin. “An opening beneath an old stone. Light below the ground. Carvings hidden beneath a cedar. Those pieces may belong to an anchor for a buried road.”
The rupture returned in a rush of tearing wind and roots graying beneath my hands. My stomach dropped. “What makes a road different from the rupture?”
Xandros met my gaze, moonlight burning in his silver eyes. “The roads were built into the Veil and held in place from both realms. When one weakens, power gathers against the damaged seam. A rupture forms when that pressure breaks through without an anchor to control it.”
The sound of the sky splitting scraped through my memory, and a shiver raced down my spine. Xandros said Asterra’s stars were dying. Its Everlight was fading. How could a dying world build enough pressure to tear through the Veil?
An elder behind Maren leaned toward the resin window. “And these creatures, the Marred. How do they fit into this?”
“They sense the weakness and force the forming fractures wider.” Xandros' expression hardened. “If the structure beneath your marker is waking, the Marred will find it again.”
Maren watched my head turn back toward the eastern boundary. “Then leaving it untouched will not keep it closed.”
“No,” Xandros said. “It may only leave you unprepared when it opens again.”
Griffin struck his staff against the floor. “Your king ordered you to recover the cause. What will you do if that cause is standing beside you?”
Caelan’s shoulders locked.
Xandros went still. Gold burned beneath his skin as his eyes found mine.
“I do not know what Verena is to the road.” His fingers curled once before opening again. “But I will not take her through the Veil against her will.”
Caelan studied him. “And what, you expect us to just trust your word after freely admitting what you withheld from us before?”
“No.” Xandros glanced at the weapons surrounding the opening. “I expect you to watch me.”
Silence settled over the chamber. Maren studied Xandros through the amber haze before lifting her chin. “One survey.” She said firmly.
Griffin turned toward her. “Maren.”
“The marker lies beneath land we are sworn to protect. Too many have crossed through it already.” She planted her staff against the floor. “We will learn what is buried there before it tears open again.”
The roots began drawing across the opening.
Gold fluttered beneath my bandage. Thin light seeped through the linen and stretched toward Xandros.
“If we didn’t wake it, why does it keep reaching for us?”
“The Briar Moon woke it.” Gold moved beneath the constellations along his hand. “We gave it something to answer.”