Chapter 12
M ira’s arrow struck the rift hound’s flank and vanished beneath its translucent skin. Indigo blood flashed around the shaft as the impact twisted the creature sideways.
All three heads snapped toward her.
They rose from one broad set of shoulders, each skull long and narrow, with black eyes sunk deep above a maw crowded with hooked teeth.
The center head hung lower than the others, its neck bent at an angle that made it sway eerily with every stride.
Uneven limbs folded beneath the Marred creature as it struck the ruined ground, rolled once, and came up running.
Three mouths opened in a single shriek that made my ears compress.
Bile climbed my throat. My hand remained trapped against the anchor.
Oren turned from Xandros and planted himself between the hound and Mira. His sword cleared its sheath as Perrin moved toward the creature’s other flank.
The rift hound split its attention between them. One head tracked Oren, another followed Perrin, while the center head kept its dark eyes fixed on Mira.
A branch cracked behind Jalen.
Xandros jerked toward the sound. “Behind you.”
Jalen turned as a second Marred dropped from the lower branches.
I had never seen anything shaped like it. Its long front limbs struck the ground first, forcing its narrow shoulders high above its spine. Folded hind legs dragged beneath its hunched body, and translucent skin stretched tight across ribs lit from within by that corrupted pulse of indigo.
Its head snapped toward Jalen.
Its mouth snapped open, exposing rows of hooked teeth that curved inward toward its throat, clearly for swallowing prey.
Jalen raised his sword, but the Marred crossed the distance before he could bring the blade around. Its mouth slammed shut around his shoulder. His leather tore beneath its teeth, blood spreading across the dark hide.
Jalen’s shout broke as they hit the ruined ground together.
My stomach lurched. I lunged toward him, but the anchor caught my wrist and snapped me back against the carving.
“Help him!”
Across the split, Xandros wrenched at his trapped hand. Gold gathered around his free fingers, bright enough to sharpen the strain across his face, but the light tore away from him and vanished into the carved stars.
Caelan released my shoulder and charged. Wild blazed along the flint edge of his sword.
The loss of his grip pitched me toward the marker. I caught myself with my free hand while the creature thrashed over Jalen, its long forelimbs digging furrows through the mud.
Jalen shoved his sword between its teeth. His arms shook beneath its weight, but the blade held its mouth inches from his throat.
Caelan swung low and cut through one of the creature’s forelegs.
The severed limb tumbled across the moss. Indigo blood sprayed behind it and hissed against the wet earth, filling the clearing with the sharp stink of scorched metal.
The Marred lurched sideways.
A piercing cry ripped from its throat.
Sula answered with a roar that shook through my ribs.
The bear charged from the edge of the clearing with Ivy clinging to her back. They thundered past Mira and struck the wounded creature before it could throw itself at Caelan.
Ivy released her grip and rolled clear.
Sula’s jaws closed around the Marred’s spine. Its body folded backward with a wet crunch as she ripped it away from Jalen and shook it hard enough to send its remaining limbs whipping through the air.
Jalen rolled onto his side. Blood covered the front of his armor and ran from the torn leather high on his arm.
An arrow sailed past him and buried itself in the creature trapped between Sula’s teeth.
The Marred shrieked and twisted against the bear’s grip.
My gaze followed the path of the arrow to Mira. She lowered her bow as the rift hound lunged behind her.
Oren caught the center head across the jaw with his sword, knocking it aside before its teeth could reach her.
Perrin drove his blade into the creature’s flank.
One of the outer heads caught the sword between its teeth and wrenched him off balance.
He struck the ground, and the creature dragged him backward through the dead moss.
The third head swung around Oren’s guard. Its dark eyes fixed on Mira.
Tessa rushed between them with her sword raised. The hound struck her with one uneven foreleg and threw her across the dead moss.
The outer head twisted against Perrin’s trapped blade. Its jaws ground closer to his hands while he braced both arms against the hilt and fought to hold them open.
Mira reached for another arrow.
“Move!” Xandros struck the marker with his free fist, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to the stone.
Mira looked up, but it was too late.
The rift hound surged forward. One of its outer heads caught Mira beneath the ribs and lifted her from the ground.
Her breath burst from her in a cry. The bow slipped from her fingers. For one suspended heartbeat, her boots hung above the ground.
Then the creature flung her aside.
“No!” I threw my weight backward.
Pain ripped through my wrist, but the stone held my palm flat against the carving.
Mira struck the base of an oak. The back of her head hit the bark with a dull crack. Her body folded before she dropped into the ferns.
Tessa ran toward her as another tremor rolled through the ground. The cedar stone pulsed beneath my trapped hand.
Indigo gathered beyond the narrow opening. A dark stain surfaced beneath Asterra’s pale soil. Another spread beside it.
Indigo light threaded between them and raced toward the blackened root. The strip of living bark dimmed as the color sank into it, following every crack toward the open road.
Cold spilled through the seam, robbing the warmth between my fingertips.
The anchor jerked my shoulder forward, and Wild tore from my arm faster than I could draw it back. Heat drained from my hand, tearing the air from my lungs and my strength along with it until I was trembling against the stone.
Across the split, Xandros braced over the marker. His constellations blazed beneath his skin while gold streamed from his palm and disappeared into the opening.
“Find a way to close it!” Caelan drove his blade into the Marred creature’s throat. “Now.”
“I’m trying!” But my Wild wouldn’t return.
Behind him, Ivy dropped beside Jalen. Her hands pressed beneath the torn edge of his armor as green light flared through her vines.
The glow vanished against his gaping wound.
His fingers found hers. She froze as he brought them to his lips.
Then his hand fell away.
Bramble’s grief tore through our bond before I understood what I had seen.
A sound scraped free from my throat.
Xandros pulled against his trapped arm. “Verena, look at me.”
Mira lay crumpled beneath the oak.
Tessa’s hand pressed against her throat. Blood ran between her fingers while Mira’s eyes stared past her into the rain.
“Verena!”
My gaze snapped back to Xandros.
Rain ran down his face. Pain had drawn deep lines around his mouth, but his eyes held mine across the opening.
“Don’t fight the anchor. Turn your power toward the cedar.”
Everlight streamed from his palm into the carved stars. One strand broke away from the divided circle and slipped beneath the bark of the roots wrapped around the marker.
The pull dragged my chest against the stone.
Mud ground into my knees. I reached through the Wild pouring from my body and found the living paths coiled around the anchor.
Cedar bends before it breaks.
I stopped wrenching backward.
My arm folded beneath the force. Instead of bracing against it, I guided the power through my shoulder and down into the cedar.
The roots shuddered.
Green peeled away from the opening. It swept beneath the carved thorns and sank into the thick wood surrounding the stone.
The pressure against my palm eased.
“Now!” Xandros dragged his Everlight back through the carved stars. Gold tore away from the seam and flooded the celestial half of the anchor.
The indigo beyond the crack surged forward, tiny motes of corruption racing toward me.
Bramble’s terror raked across my chest.
I forced the last of my Wild into the cedar with a scream.
Xandros ripped his palm from the carving and lunged around the marker.
The seam snapped shut.
The release tore my hand free and hurled me backward. My shoulder struck a body burning with heat.
Xandros' arm locked around my ribs. His knee slammed into the mud behind me as he caught my weight against his chest, stopping my head inches from the ground.
For one breath, there was nothing except him.
His heart struck hard against my shoulder. His breath warmed the side of my neck, rough and fast, while gold flickered beneath the hand spread over my ribs.
My fingers had closed in the front of his cloak.
His gaze held mine beneath rain-dark lashes.
The clearing narrowed to the heat of his body and the hand keeping me from falling.
Then Tessa screamed Mira’s name. The sound tore through me.
Xandros released me at once.
Icy rain filled the space he left behind.
I rolled onto my good hip and pressed my right hand against my chest. The starburst blazed beneath my skin, every point hot and bright.
Xandros remained on one knee beside the stone. Mud covered one side of his trousers. Blood had soaked through the linen beneath his collar.
Caelan’s sword pressed against the hollow at the base of his throat.
“Did you open it?”
“No.” Xandros kept his hands where everyone could see them. His chest rose hard beneath his tunic.
“Did you do this?” Caelan’s voice cracked through the clearing.
Xandros looked at me. “I didn’t.”
His denial lodged somewhere inside me.
Gold had burst through the stars when his palm struck the carving. He had known enough to recognize the cedar taking his Everlight and enough to show me how to follow it. How much more had he recognized before he touched the marker? How much had he kept from us?
My gaze dropped to the ground.
The moss that had risen green around my knees had collapsed into gray threads again. Rain gathered in the dead soil, and the cedar roots lay dull beneath the light fading from the carvings.
The cadence of my oath hammered with every beat of my heart.
Purpose: Protect the forest. Duty: Protect the Circle. Above all, protect the Veil.
Wild had been ripped from my body. Jalen lay bleeding in the mud. Tessa’s scream still rang through the clearing.
And the Veil had opened beneath my hand.
My arm shook from the power that had ripped through it. I pressed my palm into the mud, but the ground gave me nothing back.
This was my charge. My family’s marker. The land I had sworn to guard.
I forced myself to walk back through that first pull beneath my palm.
My Wild had entered the carving before I called it. Xandros' face had tightened with the same shock when the stars trapped his hand. He had fought through the others to reach me, then nearly emptied himself helping me close what neither of us had chosen to open.
I lifted my head.
“No.” My voice scraped through my throat. “The anchor took hold of me first. My Wild answered before I called it, and his Everlight followed.”
Caelan’s blade remained against Xandros' throat for another breath.
Then he lowered it.
“He might as well have.” The words broke roughly from his chest. His gaze moved toward the bodies in the clearing before returning to Xandros. “You knew enough to lead us to this road. You pushed us to uncover it.”
Xandros' jaw tightened, but he remained kneeling.
“And now two of mine are dead because we listened to you.”
Sula released the Marred from her jaws. Indigo blood coated her muzzle, and smoke curled from the ends of her fur.
Ivy dragged Jalen away from the scorched ground.
His face had gone still beneath the rain.
Bramble rushed into my lap. His claws caught in my armor as he climbed against my chest and shoved his nose beneath my chin. Fear, anger, and grief struck through our bond until I could barely separate his pain from mine.
My hands shook around him. His teeth closed around the edge of my collar.
I pressed my face into the wet fur between his ears and looked toward the oak. Tessa knelt beside Mira with one hand still against her throat.
The scar on Mira’s chin shone pale against her skin, and rain collected inside her open palm.
Caelan crossed to her and lowered himself beside Tessa. Two fingers pressed beneath Mira’s jaw.
His shoulders stilled, and Tessa bowed her head.
The clearing held only rain and the rough breathing of those left alive.
Nine people had left the Grove.
Seven would return.