Chapter 16
Aurora Briggins walked into the council chambers like she owned the marble.
Not in the arrogant way Lucinda owned rooms, with politics and posture and that polished smile she used like a blade. Aurora owned space the way a predator did, with quiet confidence and an easy scan of exits.
She looked younger than her age, like she had stolen time. Her blond hair was pulled back, her black cargo pants meant business, and a neon pink shirt that didn’t compliment the room.
Faith’s face lit up with the kind of grin she saved for sparring. “Welcome to the shit show.”
Aurora laughed, a real laugh that bounced off the marble and made the room feel less like a tomb. “I had a feeling.”
Lucinda’s head snapped toward her. Her eyes narrowed as if Aurora’s very existence offended her sensibilities. “What are you doing here?”
Aurora lifted her brows. “Good evening to you too.”
Lucinda ignored that. Her gaze cut to Hunter. “This is council business.”
Hunter didn’t move, but the air around him shifted anyway, that subtle alpha pressure that reminded everyone he didn’t need to shout to be heard. Reed was silent beside him.
“I called her,” Hunter said.
Lucinda’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You called a private investigator.”
“I called help,” Hunter replied. Then his tone changed, still calm, but edged. “And before you start assigning blame like you’re handing out party favors, remember whose land we are standing on.”
A ripple moved through the room. A few heads turned. Elijah studied the ceiling as if it suddenly had fascinating architecture.
Lucinda’s jaw tightened. She looked like she wanted to argue. She also looked like she knew arguing would go poorly.
Her silence was not acceptance. It was strategy.
Faith smiled brighter at that.
Aurora’s gaze swept the room and landed on me.
“Salima,” Aurora said, voice friendly but direct. “You look like you slept in a blender.”
“I had a busy night,” I told her.
That was an understatement. The bond with the egg tugged at my insides, steady and draining, as if the baby was gently reminding me that my body was not an infinite resource. Every time I thought about leaning too hard on my magic, I felt that pull.
Aurora nodded toward the long table. “Do we have any leads on the relic?”
Faith made a noise that could have meant yes or theories and bad feelings.
Hunter gestured for us to focus. “Aurora, you’re here because we need your eyes and instincts. We need the relic found. The calling has escalated again.”
Aurora’s expression sobered. “All right. What do we know?”
I cleared my throat. My mouth tasted like stale coffee and anger.
“Dagna is shielding it,” I said. “We had it at the hospital. Greyson had a device that made a seam in the shield, but it only held for seconds.”
Greyson, standing by the magical board with his phone in hand, lifted it slightly. “I can do better now that I’ve had more experience with her shield.”
Lucinda’s gaze flicked to him, then away, as if she didn’t want to acknowledge anything that wasn’t her idea.
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “So the relic is mobile?”
“Yes,” Tegan said. She stood near the table, shoulders tight, relic tracker in her hand as if it had personally betrayed her. “The moment we started getting traction, the signal smeared. She moved the anchor point.”
Aurora leaned her hip against the table’s edge, careful to stay out of Lucinda’s reach. “Where would Dagna move something like that?”
That question settled like a stone.
We all had opinions. None of them were comforting.
Nishi spoke first, calm and clipped. “Somewhere isolated, but not too far. She will want quick relocation options. She will also want terrain that blocks pursuit and sight lines.”
“The forest,” Aurora said immediately, as if it was obvious.
Eve crossed her arms. “Or anywhere she can hide a lair. She likes staging. She likes drama.”
Faith snorted. “She likes being annoying.”
“That too,” Aurora agreed. Then she looked at me again. “You saw her. Any tells?”
I thought of Dagna’s smile, the way she had looked straight at my chest like she could see me unraveling.
“She knew what she was doing,” I said quietly. “She wanted us chasing outbreaks while she repositioned. She used Drathar to flood the field with spirit-driven corpses, then slipped away.”
Carnell, lounging with his usual infuriating ease, tapped a finger against the table. “A classic distraction.”
Lucinda’s eyes narrowed. “Enough commentary. Find the relic.”
Faith’s gaze snapped to her. “We’re working on it, Your Majesty.”
Lucinda ignored Faith the way she ignored anything that didn’t flatter her.
Tegan’s fingers tightened around her tracker, then she inhaled as if she had made a decision. “I can do another spell.”
Nishi tilted her head. “Your last tracking attempt hit the shield and died.”
“I know,” Tegan said. “That was the tool. Not me. I was using a device keyed to relic signatures, and she smothered the signature with her own magic. I need to track the distortion instead.”
Aurora’s brows lifted. “Explain that in normal words.”
Tegan’s mouth twitched. “Imagine someone poured black ink into a clear stream. You can’t see the original water anymore, but you can track the ink.”
Greyson nodded, approving. “That’s doable.”
Lucinda looked unimpressed. “Then do it.”
Tegan did not ask permission. She moved to the open space near the magical board and set her tracker down. Then she pulled a small pouch from her coat. Powdered minerals, I guessed, and something that smelled like old stone.
Her guardian bloodline magic always felt different in the air. It carried heat. Like the earth itself paid attention.
Tegan drew a small circle on the marble floor with the powder, then added five marks around it. They weren’t runes I recognized from coven work. They looked older, more like symbols you’d carve into a vault door and then sleep easier.
She placed her palm in the center of the circle.
The powder flared.
Not in flame. In light.
Tiny points shimmered into existence above her hand, as if the air had remembered how to make stars. They hovered, spun slowly, then streamed outward in a thin line that hung in the room like a luminous thread.
Faith leaned forward, eyes wide. “Okay, that is cool.”
Aurora smiled. “Trail of stars.”
Tegan exhaled through her teeth. “Yes. That’s what Mom always called it.”
The words hit me like a small twist. Tegan’s mother was gone. An ancestor now, called through ritual and memory. Yet her voice lived in Tegan’s phrasing.
Greyson stepped closer, careful not to break the spell’s field. “Where is it pointing?”
The star trail extended toward the chamber doors, then angled slightly, as if it were pointing not to a single spot but to a direction. It shimmered brighter for a moment, then stabilized.
Tegan lifted her hand, and the trail held, suspended like a promise.
“It’s moved,” she said. “Not far. A few miles, maybe. A forested area, based on the way the line bends.”
Nishi’s jumped in. “Close enough to return quickly. Far enough to avoid mundanes.”
Aurora pushed off the table. “We go now. Before she moves it again.”
Hunter nodded once. “Agreed. Take the large van. It’s parked outside. The keys are in it.”
Lucinda’s eyes narrowed. “Salima goes.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a hook.
Hunter’s gaze cut to Lucinda. “She is going because she has sensed the interference firsthand. If the calling shifts, we need her to feel it.”
Lucinda’s expression stayed cold. “If she fails again, that will be noted.”
Faith stepped closer to Lucinda, voice low. “If you say one more thing like that, it will also be noted. Possibly with bruises.”
Lucinda’s eyes glittered, but she stayed quiet.
That worried me more than her insults.
We moved through the chamber doors and out into the cool air of pack lands. The forest around the council chambers was dim, evening settling in. Mist clung to the ground in thin sheets. The trees stood tall and still, as if they were listening.
The nondescript white van waited in the parking area just outside the council chambers. It looked like something that hauled equipment and bodies and did not ask questions.
Aurora took the driver’s seat without hesitation.
Faith climbed into the passenger seat like she was daring the world to inconvenience her.
Nishi slid in behind Aurora, posture ready.
Greyson sat across from me with a compact case in his lap, the shield device tucked inside like a weapon with manners.
Tegan sat beside me. Eve took the bench seat across, eyes alert and restless.
As the van rolled forward, the bond with the egg tugged again, a quiet pull that made my ribs ache. I pushed warmth through the connection instinctively, like I could soothe the baby with willpower alone.
Eve noticed my wince. “How bad?”
“Manageable,” I said.
Faith turned slightly in her seat. “We are banning that word.”
I gave her a look. “Then I’m functioning.”
“That’s worse,” Faith muttered.
Aurora drove like she had been born on these roads. The forest thickened as we moved away from the council chambers. The trail of stars was visible through the van window.
Nishi spoke quietly into her comms, coordinating hunters to continue containment elsewhere. Her voice remained controlled, but I heard strain under it. A leader could only stretch so far before something tore.
Greyson opened the case and checked the device again, fingers adjusting a dial. The runes along its frame were dull for now, waiting.
“Once we hit the shield edge, this will punch a seam,” he said. “It will not be subtle.”
Faith snorted. “Nothing about tonight has been subtle.”
Aurora slowed as the road narrowed into a rough track. She glanced in the rearview mirror. “We’re close.”
The air changed before we saw anything. The forest went quiet in a way that felt deliberate. The owls were absent. The wind seemed to hesitate. Even the mist looked thicker, as if it didn’t want to drift into a certain space.
Tegan’s trail of stars veered, then pointed straight ahead.
“That’s it,” she said.
Aurora parked on the edge of the clearing. We stepped out into damp air and the scent of pine. The ground was soft with needles and wet leaves.
At first, I saw only trees.
Then I saw the line.
Not visible like a wall, but felt. A pressure in the air that made my skin prickle. Like stepping too close to a high voltage fence.
Greyson crouched and set the device down on the ground, then placed his palm on top. The runes lit, one by one, brightening in sequence.
The air rippled.
A thin seam appeared, vertical and trembling, as if someone had sliced the world with a knife and the cut hadn’t decided whether to heal.
Faith leaned in. “That’s our door.”
“Don’t touch the edges,” Greyson warned. “Unless you want your hair to stand on end.”
Faith pulled back. “Noted.”
Nishi moved first, because of course she did. She stepped through the seam without hesitation. Aurora followed, then Faith, then Eve, then Tegan. I went last, Greyson right behind me, carrying the device like he was walking a temperamental dog.
The moment I crossed into the shielded space, my lungs tightened. The air inside felt heavier, damp and metallic, like something had bled into it. My skin prickled again, and the bond with the egg tugged hard, a sudden spike of distress.
I stopped, hand pressing to my ribs.
Eve saw it instantly. “Salima.”
“It’s stronger here,” I whispered. “The calling. It’s louder.”
Tegan’s trail was brighter here. “We’re close.”
We moved deeper into the forest. The trees inside the shield looked the same, but everything felt wrong. The shadows were too still. The ground seemed to swallow any sound.
The trail of stars appeared again, faint points in the air that shimmered when Tegan lifted her hand and whispered a short phrase. They floated in a line ahead of us, guiding like a breadcrumb trail made of light.
We followed it over a low ridge and down into a shallow ravine where moss clung to rocks. A narrow opening yawned at the base of a stone outcrop, half hidden behind ferns and a fallen branch.
A cave.
It looked haphazard, like someone had chosen it quickly rather than carefully. No carved wards on the outer stone. No elegant defenses. Just concealment and arrogance, the belief that the shield itself was enough.
Faith peered into the darkness. “This is either brilliant or stupid.”
Aurora’s mouth curved. “Sometimes it’s both.”
Nishi drew a blade and stepped in first. Aurora followed with the quiet ease of a white wolf in human skin. Eve’s hands glowed, ready to conjure flame if something lunged at us.
The cave smelled of damp stone and something acrid, like burned herbs.
The floor was uneven, scattered with debris.
Someone had been living here, temporarily.
I saw an empty coffee cup, crushed, and a torn wrapper near a pile of cloth that might have been a blanket.
Chalk marks were scratched into the stone wall in messy lines, not careful ritual work, more like frantic notes.
A small table had been dragged in, crooked on the uneven floor. On it sat a cluster of odd items. A cracked mirror. A vial of dark liquid. A handful of dried flowers that looked dead even by dried standards.
And a box.
It didn’t match anything else.
The rest of the lair looked thrown together. The box looked intentional.
It was medium sized, dark wood reinforced with iron bands. The surface carried runes that shimmered when I looked at them directly. The air around it felt colder.
Tegan went still. Her trail led to the box.
“That’s it,” she whispered.
Faith’s voice dropped. “You sure.”
Tegan nodded once, eyes fixed on the box. “It’s in there.”
Whatever sat in that box was not just a stolen relic.
It was the heart of the calling.
And we were finally close enough to touch the source.