Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
brEN
The great hall was too quiet when I arrived mid-afternoon. I glanced across the room and found Maeve standing on the upper scaffolding along a wall, her back to me, marking a length of plasterwork.
She turned and looked across to me. “Afternoon, Bren.”
I dipped my head in greeting and worked to keep my voice even. “Where’s Selene?”
“She’s showing Rian around the area.” She turned back to her work. “The lake, forest trails, and the old abbey. They should be back any moment.”
I stilled as my mind raced through the possibilities. They would likely be fine. But I couldn’t ignore that we’d experienced two tears in the Veil, and wraiths had slipped through.
I didn’t want to overreact, but it seemed I couldn’t help myself. “Which direction did they head?”
Maeve descended the scaffolding without hurrying and crossed to the worktable where she’d left her notebook. She made a small notation before she looked up at me. “I’m not sure. The lake first, maybe?”
If I charged after Selene, I knew exactly where Maeve’s thoughts would turn. It couldn’t be helped. “She shouldn’t be out there alone.”
Maeve arched a curious brow. “She’s not alone. She’s with Rian.”
That brought little to no relief. “There have been two incidents near the abbey in recent days. She knows that.”
“She does, but she said she can sense them. I don’t think they’re in danger.” Maeve held my gaze, giving me nothing. Then the corners of her mouth moved, just slightly. “Are you afraid something will happen?”
I knew what she thought she was reading. She wasn’t wrong enough for me to correct her. “I need to find her.”
I left before Maeve could say anything else.
Brisk air filled my lungs as I strolled at a quickened pace toward the lake.
The water sat low and gray beneath the overcast sky, the reeds along the near bank bent low from the morning wind.
I walked as far as I could in each direction, checking the tree line where the Veil seemed thinnest, but didn’t spot them.
An image of Selene hurt weaseled into my thoughts and tightened my fears. Where was she?
A sudden gust of wind raced across the water and slapped my face. The surprise of it brought a measure of sense back to me, and I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking.
I willed my pulse to slow as I stood on the bank, watching ripples roll toward me. After hundreds of years, my first reaction should have been to check the Veil, and I couldn’t understand why my thoughts had turned to fear instead.
It made little sense.
Without delay, I reached outward, testing the Veil the way I tested it a hundred times each day, reading the pressure, the texture, the places where the seam pulled taut or sagged. It answered me steadily. No slits. No distortion.
Still, that didn’t mean one couldn’t form at any moment. And if something stronger found a breach, one with more intelligence, it could be through it in seconds.
Bloody fucking hell.
I turned and headed for the trees flanking the castle.
The forest held the familiar, musky scent of decaying leaves and abundant moss. I moved through the oaks quickly, glancing left and right. I called her name several times, but the trees absorbed it. That she didn’t answer stirred my blood in ways I didn’t like.
I tightened my jaw as I attuned myself to the Veil again, trying to concentrate, but my focus kept fracturing, kept turning to Selene. To her terrified expression when she’d witnessed her first thorn wraith. Then to the way she’d looked at me when I drew my sword to kill it.
Gods be damned.
I needed a clear head.
I exhaled hard and stopped walking. Then I forced myself to stillness again and dropped every other thought.
I reached for the Veil…and lost my breath.
There. A disturbance, faint but present, in the abbey’s direction.
Moonlight tingled in my palm, and I ran.
I didn’t bother with the path. I went straight through the undergrowth, branches snapping against my coat, the ground uneven beneath my boots.
The Veil’s signal strengthened with each stride.
Whatever was there, it was not a remnant.
Not a hairline fracture that had opened on its own. Something had anchored.
I called her name again when the crumbling abbey wall came into view.
“I’m here.” Her voice reached me from beyond the broken wall to the east. Steady but pitched higher than usual. “I’m here, Bren.”
Thank the gods.
I rounded the crumbling stone and stopped.
Selene stood inside the ruined nave, her back against a broken arch, her arms extended toward a low tangle of roots and fallen branches she’d dragged into a rough barrier across the open ground.
A common wraith hovered on the far side of it, its smoky form churning against the constraint, anchored to a headstone near the cemetery wall.
It pressed toward her, and the branches held, but barely. The cold coming off it had turned the damp grass around the headstone flat and pale.
She was breathing hard, and there was a streak of damp earth across her jaw. But her hands were steady. Her stance was planted. She hadn’t run.
She glanced at me. “I have it contained.”
I reached for my moonlight.
The creature sensed the shift in the air the moment the silver gathered at my fingertips.
It recoiled from the barrier, pulling back toward the headstone, and I moved forward, crossing the distance in four strides.
My blade formed fully, and I cut through the branches and the anchor with a single stroke, clean through the base of it with more effort than was necessary.
The wraith collapsed inward, unraveling like smoke in the wind, and was gone.
Silence returned. The grass stayed flat where the cold had pressed it down.
Selene lowered her arms. She exhaled a long, controlled breath, and then lifted her chin toward me, waiting.
Before I could explain all the reasons she should have run, her words tumbled out of her in a rush.
“I tried to call you but couldn’t get through.
Not to Maeve either. I would have left it and tried calling from the castle, but the wraith moved from one headstone to another.
Not fast, but I worried it might escape if I walked away. ”
The idea chilled me, though I knew it couldn’t be true. I hardened my gaze into a stern look. “They don’t move, Selene. Once anchored, they don’t move.”
She shook her head, barely listening to me. “No, it did. But I remembered what I did in the grove with the tree, and I wondered if I could trap it with branches.”
She gestured at the makeshift barrier. “It worked.”
I looked at the tangle of roots and branches. It had worked. The wraith had not reached her. She’d improvised from something she’d witnessed under terror and applied it calmly, alone, without prompting.
The thought of it shook me. “You should have left it to me.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, and her expression dulled with disappointment. “You weren’t at the castle yet, and I had it contained.”
I shook my head once. “You were delaying it. That’s not the same thing.”
She argued with a shake of her head. “It was enough.”
“Until it wasn’t.” I forced my voice to remain level. “These creatures feed on proximity. The longer you remained beside it, the stronger it would become. Your barrier would have held for a time. Not indefinitely.”
“You tell me this now?” She crossed her arms over her chest, clearly frustrated. “Doesn’t matter. You arrived before that became an issue.”
“This time.”
My words came out sharper than I’d intended, and she flinched.
I reined in my emotions and tried again. “Where is Rian?”
It had seemed a reasonable question, but the look in her eyes darkened, and I feared she’d taken it to mean more than it was.
“He wanted to keep hiking and taking pictures. He enjoys photography.”
A grunt of dismissal escaped me before I caught it. “Whose idea was it to come to the abbey?”
Selene narrowed her gaze. “I don’t know. Neither. Both. Maeve was talking about watching the birds over the lake earlier while we were working, and Rian said he was eager to see the countryside. We went for a walk during lunch.”
She pressed her lips together. “Why does it matter?”
I said nothing as I strode to the headstone where the wraith had anchored, my gaze drifting across the familiar marker. The cold was already lifting from the surrounding grass, but the stone itself sat at an angle. The anchor hadn’t formed there by chance.
I faced her again. “This is the third incident in recent days.”
Fear flickered in her eyes, but she held her ground. “True, but you said the Veil is thin here. You told me that yourself. Don’t forget, I can sense them too. I could have run if I’d wanted.”
And should have. “I told you the inlay in the castle is a thin place. Not here. There’s not been a breach at the abbey in a long time.” I couldn’t remember even one in past years.
Her gaze darted past my shoulder before she focused on me. “What are you saying?”
I pinned her with a hard look. I didn’t enjoy scaring her, but I obviously hadn’t given her enough information to keep her safe. “Listen. It’s highly unusual to have multiple breaches in the same area this close together.”
I paused to exhale a calming breath. Berating her wouldn’t help. “That’s not the Veil weakening uniformly. Do you understand? That’s something specific to this place.”
Selene grew quiet, and I could see her thinking it through, her gaze moving to the cemetery wall and then back to me. “You think it’s deliberate.”
I lifted my gaze to the heavens and inwardly cursed. “I don’t have proof, but I don’t want you wandering off alone without someone who can protect you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Meaning you?”
The need to explain frustrated me. She already knew defending the Veil was my duty. “Rian certainly couldn’t, and he abandoned you to begin with.”
A short, hard huff escaped her. I realized my mistake and hurried to cover it. “I suppose Cormac would do. He can dispatch a wraith, if necessary, but he’s unable to seal a breach. More wraiths could follow.”
I paused to let that sink in. “Worse ones.”
Her soft snort was anything but compliant. “If you recall, I can sense breaches now and seal them too. And I contained that wraith. I’m not completely helpless.”
It was true. She wasn’t. But that wasn’t the point. “Is it too much to ask of you not to go wandering in the woods on your own?”
She tightened her jaw, studying my face as she considered my question. “You knew I came here with Maeve and didn’t have a problem with it then.”
Gods, why couldn’t the woman just listen? “That was before there was a second wraith at the abbey.”
Her answer came immediately. “But there was one in the trees near the castle a few days ago.”
The warning in her expression was subtle, and it left me momentarily without an answer.
Selene shifted her stance. “This isn’t just about wraiths, is it? You had no problem with Maeve accompanying me here, but suddenly you do with Rian.”
I scoffed. “This is about the abbey becoming an active breach site and you being alone in it.”
She dismissed my claim with a shake of her head. “Sure, that’s a concern, but that’s not what this is about. You can laugh with Eireann and Cormac for an entire afternoon, but I can’t show a colleague around the castle grounds without it becoming a problem.”
Her quiet accusation was worse than if she’d cursed at me, and she didn’t stop there. “You won’t talk to me, not really. And now you don’t want me talking to anyone else either. Am I right?”
I swallowed, working to gather my scattered wits.
I had not known she could hear us. I’d been aware she was in the hall, but she’d been working. Eireann had drawn me into conversation, and I’d let it happen. I’d let myself be easy in a way I couldn’t be with Selene, because with Eireann, the ease cost me nothing.
With Selene, the price was steep.
I raised my hand to stop the conversation from drifting more. “That isn’t what this is.”
She held my gaze. “Then explain what it is.”
I could not. Not without telling her things that would pull her in, things that would make her feel the full weight of what stood against her. She didn’t yet know how many people with power were watching this land, and she could earn their attention at any moment.
If they learned what she was…what she could do, the cost might be her life. She needed time to focus on other things besides fear.
“The situation is more complicated than I can explain right now,” I said.
Something closed in her expression. “Right.”
Without speaking another word, she picked up her bag from the base of the arch, brushed a clod of earth from the strap, and walked past me toward the gap in the wall without another word.
She strode at a rapid pace, her boots landing hard on the damp ground, an echo of her emotions. I remained a moment longer, needing the silence to think things through.
The wraith had anchored itself to my mother’s headstone.
Selene had claimed it had moved, but I knew better. Once anchored, wraiths didn’t drift, and the one it had chosen wasn’t random.
I’d told myself the creatures were drawn to the castle’s restoration because the work reinforced threshold protections that had been left to fail for decades.
The work surely pressed against the other side.
The old wards, neglected anchors, and a building full of accumulated liminal energy would attract them.
The wraiths could feed on that energy as we disturbed it.
That explanation had satisfied me. It was reasonable with evidence.
But it didn’t explain the abbey. The crumbling remains had nothing to do with the restoration. Nothing to do with the castle’s interior work.
I looked at the headstone a moment longer.
Then I turned and followed Selene out of the trees.