Chapter 32 #2
The girl’s shoulders sagged at his tone, her hands hovering over the kettle. She hesitated for a second, her back to them, before slowly turning around, her face blank.
“Have your souls searched for each other in the dreamspace?” she asked, voice flat.
The Hunter dipped his chin in a slow nod and Elara’s world tilted. The strange dreams—they had been sharing them.
The Hunter wouldn’t meet Elara’s gaze as Sybil’s expression tightened. “Then it’s farther along than I would like if you’re here to sever the connection.”
“Not sever—test it.”
Sybil’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking—”
“Are you both really going to keep talking as if I’m not sitting right here?
” Elara cut in, slapping a hand on the table.
“And not once has anyone thought to ask if I want to be tested—especially after you nearly snapped my wrist not five seconds ago.” She turned her glare on Sybil.
“Forgive me if I’m not exactly eager for more of that. ”
The Hunter’s lip twitched, barely concealing a smirk. “Excuse my cousin. She’s a seer, prone to bouts of insanity.”
Sybil scoffed, but Elara’s attention was on the Hunter.
“You brought me to a Soothsayer?” she said, incredulous.
The very word sent a cold shiver down her spine, dragging up memories.
The Soothsayers in Verdara had been relentless in their attention, drawn to her in ways that felt invasive, even predatory.
If anything, they had been the most unsympathetic and detached of all the Druids, their methods bordering on the cruel.
The mere thought of them made her teeth grind.
She hated them—hated what they saw in her.
A harsh, mocking laugh cut through Elara's thoughts, pulling her attention back to Sybil.
“Please. I’m nothing like the Druids you grew up worshipping.” She leaned in, eyes gleaming. “What I do... let’s just say it’s not exactly lawful. Druids cling to their precious order and balance, but me? I thrive in chaos.”
Elara didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, but she pressed her trembling hands into her lap, out of sight.
“Can you do it?”
Sybil broke eye contact first, turning to the Hunter with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.
“Of course I can do it.” She bent down, rummaging beneath the table, and pulled out a large mirror, placing it with a heavy thud.
Her eyes flicked up, keen and expectant.
“I’m going to scry. But I’ll need something from both of you. ”
The Hunter slipped off his ring, the four stones catching the dim light as he placed it in the center of the mirror.
Elara hesitated. She had nothing—no possessions, nothing of value.
Not since being thrown into that prison.
All she had left was her blood, and she wasn’t about to offer that.
Her mind raced, then landed on something else.
She reached up, twisting a single strand of hair around her finger before pulling it free with a sharp snap.
She handed it to Sybil.
“That’ll do.” Sybil said, placing it beside the ring.
The girl hovered over the mirror, her eyes narrowing in deep concentration as she waved a hand above the ring and strand of hair. The surface of the mirror rippled like water disturbed by a single drop, then slowly darkened, as if the glass had swallowed the light in the room.
Elara leaned forward, as the mirror began to shimmer, three faint glowing threads emerging like veins of light, weaving and curling around one another.
They stretched between the ring and the strand of hair, coiling as if seeking each other out.
Elara’s heart thudded in her chest as she watched them, entranced by the way they seemed to move with purpose.
“Do you see it?” Sybil’s voice trembled, her usual snark frayed with something close to fear. Her form flickered, like a candle’s flame caught in a sudden gust—part of her vanishing, only to reappear a heartbeat later. “Your connection—it’s unstable.”
As she spoke, the threads in the mirror trembled violently, no longer smooth and fluid but jagged. The mirror itself shuddered, the glass warping as if it were trying to contain something it wasn’t meant to hold. Sybil’s body flickered again, losing substance, and the room swayed.
Elara gasped as a sharp pull tore at her chest, an invisible force dragging her toward the mirror—like her very soul was being wrenched free and drawn into the dark, vibrating void.
Sybil slammed her hand down on the table with a crack, and the world snapped back into focus.
The room stopped spinning, the wild pull vanished, and Sybil’s form stabilized.
The mirror fell still, though the twisted, trembling threads remained.
Her brow furrowed, her expression shifting, and she let out a quiet “Huh,” as though the storm of moments before had barely grazed her.
Tension coiled tight in the Hunter’s frame. “What?”
Sybil didn’t respond immediately, her fingers tracing the surface of the mirror like she was reading a map.
She tapped near three distinct threads, the soft glow reflecting in her eyes.
“You see these?” she murmured, her voice unusually quiet, almost reverent.
“These are the connections. This one here,” she tapped the strand of hair, “is yours,” her finger shifted to the ring, “and this one belongs to him.” Her eyes flicked briefly to the Hunter.
But Sybil’s eyes darkened with something like confusion as she leaned closer, studying the third thread.
Her lips twisted into a frown. “This one... this doesn’t belong to either of you.
” She tilted her head. “It’s someone else’s. But I can’t see who.”
Elara’s stomach twisted. She glanced at the Hunter, hoping for answers, but his expression was locked in that stony mask he always wore, his eyes flickering with something she couldn’t name.
Sybil shook her head, her finger still tracing that third thread as if it might reveal more if she pushed hard enough. “I’ve never seen this before."
“Can you sever them?” Elara didn’t want this—this connection, this tether. Not to the Hunter, not to anyone.
The Hunter shifted beside her, his gaze steady on the mirror. Elara knew that if she wanted to, she could search for his heart and would feel it pounding.
Sybil waved her hand, and the glowing threads vanished, dissolving into nothing.
“It can be done,” she said, her voice thoughtful.
“Normally, if two casters are linked like this, they can destroy their rings—break the connection—and start the Convergence all over again. A tedious process, yes, but for those who refuse the Draoth Cara, it’s worth it. ”
Elara’s fingers twitched involuntarily as Sybil’s gaze darkened, her lips pressing into a tight, grim line.
“But you…” she shook her head. “For starters, you’re not linked to any element at all.
And him…” She glanced toward the Hunter, her eyes filled with something close to pity. “He’s bound to four.”
The Hunter’s gaze finally broke from the mirror, his jaw flexing as he looked at Sybil. “And what does that mean for us?”
Sybil’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your Draoth Cara—whatever it is—doesn’t follow the same rules. It’s something else entirely.”
Elara bit her lip, then quickly let it go, a fleeting idea creeping in—could the Hunter feel that, too? She shoved it aside and straightened.
“So break the ring. All four stones. That solves it, doesn’t it?”
Sybil raised an eyebrow, her eyes gleaming with something between amusement and pity. “Sure,” she said slowly. “But nothing’s ever that simple. Breaking a bond with an element isn’t clean. It’s bloody, painful work.”
“You said it’s done all the time.”
“I said it can be done,” Sybil corrected, her voice cool. “Doesn’t mean it’s common. When it is attempted, it’s agony. Could kill weaker casters. But yes, in theory, it’s possible.” Her gaze turned harder, more pointed. “But our Hunter here? He might not survive it.”
The Hunter stood abruptly, the force of it jarring Elara from her thoughts.
“I can’t break the bond with the stones,” he ground out, voice low and taut, fists flexing as though fighting to stay in control. “They weren’t chosen at random. The Lord Sovereign picked each one. If I destroy even one, he’ll know. He’ll feel it.”
Elara felt a cold weight settle in her chest. “Then what can we do?”
Sybil sighed, crossing her arms as she leaned against the hearth. “There are rituals,” she said, her tone cool. “Old ones. They can lessen the symptoms, soften the link. But nothing will sever the Draoth Cara entirely. Not without risk.”
“What about my bind?” Elara asked, not caring that the Hunter stood right beside her. “If I break it, could that change things?”
Sybil raised an eyebrow, her tone almost bored. “If you manage to break the bind, you’d be stronger, sure. And maybe—maybe—you could force the link into a dormant state. It wouldn’t sever it, but it could weaken the hold.”
For a heartbeat, hope flickered inside Elara. But Sybil’s sharp laugh cut through it, snuffing it out as quickly as it had come. Elara’s her gaze shifted between Sybil and the Hunter. “What?”
Sybil’s eyes gleamed, almost pitying. “Only the Lord Sovereign knows how to break that bind. It’s a Tírrísh spell—ancient, forbidden, and wiped from every record. Unless you plan on charming him into handing it over, there’s nothing you can do.”
A cold sweat prickled at the back of her neck as Sybil’s words sunk in.
It was as if a stone had lodged itself beneath her ribs, sinking deeper with each breath, the air growing thick and stifling.
The flicker of hope she’d held onto slipped through her fingers, leaving behind the hollow ache of dread that crawled into the spaces it left behind.
She swallowed, trying to push back the growing sense of helplessness. But then, like a thread being pulled free, a thought unraveled in her mind. The spell....
The Hunter had the spell.
She’d seen Osin give it to him, watched the exchange herself.
The tension thickened, almost tangible, tightening around her lungs as her gaze found him.
He was already looking at her.
For a moment, everything else fell away—the room, Sybil, the stakes—until only the two of them remained, caught in a silent exchange. A muscle jumped in his cheek, something dark flickering across his face, but he didn’t look away. He didn’t need to. The truth was already there.
Elara felt the corner of her mouth twitch as her fingers rose to the necklace at her throat, curling around it. She didn’t need words to know what lay beneath his silence. He had the answers she wanted—and she would draw them out of him, one way or another.