Chapter 42 — Ethan
Akila glances over from where she’s monitoring Conan’s breathing. Branson and Xander exchange looks I can’t read.
Rhiannon’s lips press into a hard line. A war plays out in her eyes, duty battling with protectiveness, tactical necessity clashing with the instinct to shield me and the others from harm.
“If anything goes wrong. . .if I feel you slipping or the bond destabilizing, I’m cutting you off immediately. No arguments.”
“Agreed.”
She stills and closes her eyes.
The connection between us shifts. What was a single thread suddenly becomes a doorway, and Rhiannon pushes it open.
. . .is he serious. . .
. . .we need to get Conan out. . .
. . .Commander, what is he. . .
The sensation throws me off balance. It’s not like hearing Rhiannon’s thoughts, familiar and intimate. This is a cacophony. Three distinct presences are melding together as one chorus and brushing against my consciousness, each one carrying their own texture, their own emotional weight.
I can hear all of you!
Branson’s mind feels like bedrock. Solid. Immovable. Akila’s burns bright and fierce, her fear for Conan searing through everything else. Xander’s mind carries steadfast authority, heavy with sharp-edged thoughts and controlled power.
And beneath it all: Rhiannon. The conduit. The bridge. The effort it takes her to hold the channel open bleeds through, she’s strained by the effort of maintaining a connection that was never meant to include someone like me.
I’ll explain later. Rhiannon’s thought slices through the noise with military precision. Right now, we use this. Ethan can feed us intelligence in real-time. We’ll use his observations to our advantage.
Holden is trying to get the protective charm Haron gave me. I push my thoughts to the others through Rhiannon. There must be a reason why. I think it can stop his ritual. I just need to figure out how.
Okay then, Xander thinks. What’s the plan?
Rhiannon’s mind sharpens, and her tactical training kicks in like a machine clicking into gear.
Branson, you’re our wall. Draw his attention, make him think we’re trying another direct assault.
Akila, circle left—stay in his peripheral vision but don’t engage until I signal.
Alpha, flank right. Cut off his escape route to the temple entrance. I’ll take him straight on.
And Ethan? Branson asks.
Ethan has the hardest task — figuring out how to stop this fucking ritual. No matter what, don’t let Holden get that necklace.
Yes, Commander!
The pack moves.
There’s no countdown, no verbal signal. Just a shared pulse of intention that ripples through the bond, and suddenly they’re flowing out from behind the pillars like shadows with purpose.
For the first time since we entered this temple, we’re not just reacting.
We’re hunting.
I peer around the pillar’s edge, scanning the salt hexagon and its pulsing crystals. Holden’s gaze snaps to me instantly. He moves forward.
Branson.
On it.
Branson charges at him, every step rattling the stones of the temple. Holden whips around, power gathering between his hands.
A blast of green energy hurls toward Branson, and he throws himself sideways. Akila uses the distraction to close in on Holden’s left flank, and I watch his eyes flit between threats.
Keep him distracted so Ethan can observe the ritual, Rhiannon instructs.
The pack adjusts, adapts. Moves as one organism with a human riding shotgun.
Xander steps into Holden’s direct line of sight, and the air itself seems to thicken. He’s not attacking, but domineering. Every inch of him radiates Alpha sovereignty: his stance wide, chin lifted, eyes locked onto Holden with absolute certitude.
“You want a war with my pack?” Xander’s voice carries through the temple like thunder. “Then face me. Not my guards. Me.”
Holden’s attention snaps to him, instinct overpowering his will. Some part of him — maybe the part that spent his whole life under his father’s shadow — responds to the command of his superiors whether he wants to or not.
Holden doesn’t retreat toward the entrance. He holds his ground by the hexagon.
Perfect.
I have my window.
My eyes sweep across the salt formation, tracking the pattern of pulsing magic.
The hexagon stretches maybe twenty feet across, each edge formed by a neat line of crystalline salt that catches the green light and holds it like a fiber optic cable.
What must be sixty-something candles outline the perimeter, their flames burning with that same unnatural emerald color — they’re not flickering like normal fire, but throbbing in perfect synchronization.
There’s a circuit that connects everything. I can see it now — the way the lines aren’t just boundaries, but conductors. There are channels carved into the stone floor that are filled with the salt. Energy flows through them like blood through veins.
Six crystals. Six points. But the light doesn’t flow evenly between them.
I watch the next pulse travel through the circuit, and there it is — the asymmetry I almost missed.
The surge doesn’t hit all six points simultaneously.
It passes through a particular one first, which acts as a multi-faceted prism at the northern point, catching each wave of energy and refracting it outward to the others.
The thing is maybe the size of my fist, cut with more angles than I can count, and it splits the incoming power like a lens splits white light into a rainbow.
It’s the cornerstone.
The next pulse builds. I count the rhythm in my chest.
Rhiannon. I push the image through our bond: the prism, its position, the timing. Northern crystal. Break it on the next surge. Three seconds.
Copy.
As Xander, Akila, and Branson keep Holden’s attention, Rhiannon moves like liquid shadow, stalking the prism like prey.
Now!
She leaps forward with explosive speed. Her blade arcs through the air and crashes down onto the prism in a clean, killing stroke.
The air shivers.
A translucent sheen ripples across the crystal’s surface, iridescent like oil on water. The temple groans with a deep vibration that resonates through the stone beneath my feet into my very bones.
Then there’s a backdraft followed by a detonation.
Rhiannon staggers back, her arm jarring, blade ringing. The forceful wave expands outward in a visible ripple, bending the candlelight as it passes before washing over the pillars and me.
In my head, the pack-bond fuzzes like static.
Commander— Branson’s voice vanishes mid-thought.
One second, I’m connected to four distinct minds, and the next, I’m alone in the echoing space of Rhiannon’s consciousness, our bond the only thread left intact.
Are you okay?
Yeah, hold on.
Rhiannon braces herself. One inhale. Two. Her iron will drags our minds back into focus.
The channel reopens.
Fuck.
What happened?
The others flood back in, their presence shakier than before, but there.
Rhiannon tried to destroy the cornerstone, I offer as Rhiannon catches her breath.
There’s a ward, Rhiannon adds.
A protection spell, Branson chimes in. Brute force won’t break it.
The crystal dangling against my chest pulses with sudden heat, tugging toward the prism like iron to lodestone. I grab it instinctively, the pull buzzing through my fingers.
The prism brightens with the same surge-lull rhythm as before. Pulse. Fade. Pulse. Fade.
The charm answers in perfect synchronization.
Haron’s charm, I tell the others. It’s syncing with the pulses. It’s reacting to the prism.
Then it can disrupt the ward, Branson’s thought carries certainty. But it probably has to make contact.
My stomach drops.
The charm remains in my hand. The salt formation is about forty feet away, and the prism another twenty beyond that. Holden stands between them, trading blows with Xander now, power crackling between them with each strike.
No. Rhiannon’s thought hits like a slap. Absolutely not.
What else can I do? I respond. You want me to fucking throw it?
I’ll do it, she insists.
Holden will catch on if you have to cross twenty feet of open ground and then make it back again, I reason with her, shaking my head. If I keep it on until the last second, I shorten the window that I’m vulnerable.
You’re already vulnerable. You’re HUMAN.
Then you better cover me.
I don’t give either of us time to think.
Ethan—
My legs are moving before Rhiannon’s protest finishes forming, my boots pounding against frost-slicked stone as I sprint from behind the pillars. The cold air burns my lungs. Sixty feet has never felt so far.
Holden’s head snaps toward me like a predator that smells blood. His eyes lock onto the crystal bouncing against my chest, and I watch understanding flash across his face. He pivots toward me, abandoning Xander mid-strike.
Alpha, anchor Holden inside the ritual footprint! Rhiannon’s command crackles through the bond. Akila, feint left—make him overcommit. Branson, you’re Ethan’s shield. I’ll hit the prism the second that ward drops.
The team moves with perfect coordination.
Xander uses his mere presence to keep Holden in the hexagon. Every step Holden takes backward, Xander mirrors him by stepping forward, herding him deeper into the ritual insignia’s footprint.
Holden’s focus shifts back to me, power coalescing between his palms as he prepares for a killing strike.
Branson materializes at my side, solid as stone. A blast of green energy slams into his shoulder, spinning him sideways, but he doesn’t fall. Doesn’t even make a sound. Just plants his feet and keeps moving, positioning his body between me and Holden’s line of sight.
Stay focused, Ethan! Rhiannon warns. Now, Akila!
I’ve breached the hexagon. There’s twenty feet between me and the prism.
Akila cuts in from the left, blade flashing. He will pay for what he did.
The rage fueling her isn’t tactical. It’s personal. She moves without hesitation, anger driving every step, daring Holden to engage.
It works. Holden twists to meet her charge, sending out a blast of green fire following her trajectory.
Akila drops into a slide, the magic projectile screaming over her head, close enough to singe her hair. She neither wavers nor slows. Just keeps moving, forcing Holden to keep track of her and Xander at the same time, to choose between threats.
I see my opening. Ten more feet.
The prism pulses. Green light courses through the salt circuit, and the charm around my neck answers with heat that borders on painful.
Almost there, Rhiannon says.
Holden roars something in a language I don’t understand. The temple shudders. Branson takes another hit and goes down hard, but I’m past him now. There’s nothing between me and the cornerstone but empty air.
Keep Holden away! Rhiannon commands.
I keep my eyes ahead, refusing to check on the chaos behind me.
Wait for the lull. Three... two...
I yank the necklace off, letting the chain coil around my wrist. The crystal sits between my fingers, warm and thrumming with borrowed rhythm.
The surge crests, then peaks.
NOW.
I press the crystal against the prism’s surface.
There’s a tsunami of light.
Pure, blinding white sears through my closed eyelids and burns afterimages into my brain. A sound like the crystal is singing — high-pitched and close — drills into my skull.
Everything happens in slow motion. Cracks spider-web across the translucent surface like ice breaking under too much weight. The thread of light from Haron’s charm skates along each fissure, widening them, forcing them apart. The ward fractures.
But the energy finds nowhere else to go.
So, it floods into me.
My arm goes numb from my fingertips to my shoulder. There are no pins and needles. All feeling is just gone, like someone flipped a switch and disconnected the limb from my nervous system. Pain erupts behind my eyes, sharp and bright, and warmth trickles from my nose.
The taste of copper floods my tongue. My ears ring.
This is what happens when human tissue conducts magic it wasn’t built to hold.
My knees buckle. The world tilts sideways. Stone rushes up to meet me, and I barely get my hands out in time to catch myself. My palms scrape against the frost-slicked floor, and the impact sends shockwaves up my lifeless arm.
Through the ringing in my ears, I hear Holden scream —not in pain, but in fury.
Forcing my head up, blinking through the spots swimming across my vision, I can see that the prism’s surface is a web of fractures now, with light bleeding through each crack like something alive trying to escape. The ward is down. The cornerstone is vulnerable.
And Holden knows it.
He abandons all pretense of tactics. Xander’s next strike glances off his hastily thrown light shield as he pivots toward the prism, both hands outstretched.
His face twists with desperate rage. “NO!”
Power continues to surge through the salt circuit, but it’s gone haywire now. It’s utterly chaotic. The lines that once flowed with precise geometric rhythm are flooding with light that sparks and flashes erratically, building toward a breaking point.
Holden doesn’t seem to care about the danger.
He’s pulling — dragging — energy through the exposed prism like a man dying of thirst, forcing the ritual toward completion before we can stop him. Green-white light pours into his chest, his eyes, his open mouth. His back arches. His robes billow in a wind that exists only for him.
Too much. He’s taking too much too fast.
The realization comes to me through the fog clouding my thoughts. The prism can’t handle this. He can’t handle this. But he’s beyond reason now, beyond strategy, driven by nothing but the desperate need to finish what he started.
My entire body fights me like I’ve been hit by a garbage truck, but I force myself to focus.
The charm throbs against my palm, its growing warmth indicating that it’s reaching critical mass. The pattern is burned into my memory.
One last pulse left. . .
I search in my mind for my link to Rhiannon. It feels like pushing through wet concrete, every thought fighting the static filling my skull. But I find her.
RHIANNON—NOW!
She receives my message. Her muscles coil, and she launches into the air, blade arcing toward the prism.
My fingers grip the charm as it erupts.
White fire races up my arm, through my shoulder, into my chest. Every nerve ending screams. The crystal blazes so bright I can’t see my own hand holding it, can’t see anything but pure, blinding white swallowing the world whole.
My vision tunnels to a pinpoint of light.
The roaring in my ears swallows everything else.
And I’m gone.