Chapter Forty
The quiet came first.
It wasn’t the peaceful sort that settles over a place at rest, but the kind that made my shoulders tighten and my magic stir, the kind that felt deliberate.
We moved as one through the Wilds, boots and paws and careful steps pressing into moss and leaf litter that should have crackled and whispered back at us. Instead, the ground absorbed the sound as if it didn’t want to give anything away.
I glanced over my shoulder more than once, half-expecting to see Stonewick already distant behind us, but the trees folded in close, their trunks leaning subtly inward as if to watch us pass. The Wilds had always felt alive, responsive, curious. Today, they felt… alert.
Too alert.
Perhaps it was because they were occupied with hundreds of shifters calling it home.
“This place usually talks more,” Stella muttered somewhere behind me, her voice low, stripped of its usual humor. “I don’t like being ignored.”
Twobble, still perched proudly atop the bramblemule, sniffed the air.
“It’s not ignoring us,” he said, far too cheerfully. “It’s listening.”
That didn’t help.
The group stretched longer than I liked, not because anyone lagged, but because the path itself seemed to continually unwind ahead of us, curving and looping in gentle, almost polite detours after we’d left the Wilds.
It felt like the woods were delaying us.
Nova slowed, her brow furrowing as she studied the faint shimmer in the air ahead. She lifted a hand, fingers splayed, then frowned. “The route’s changed.”
Keegan stopped beside her. “Changed how?”
“Lengthened,” she said. “Not by much. Enough that you wouldn’t notice unless you were watching for it.”
My stomach sank. “It’s not trying to stop us.”
“No,” Nova agreed quietly. “It’s giving us more time to be seen.”
I felt it then, a subtle warmth blooming against my hip, right where my birthmark rested beneath layers of fabric.
I pressed my palm there instinctively. “She knows.”
The words slipped out before I could temper them.
Keegan looked at me sharply. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “The Priestess knows we’re moving. She knows where we’re headed, and she’s hoping they find us before we find them, so she’s making our path more difficult.”
As if summoned by the thought, something shifted at the edge of my vision.
A shadow detached itself from the base of a tree, stretching longer than the light should have allowed. It didn’t rush us, snarl, or strike. It simply… watched. Its shape was indistinct, more suggestion than form, like a smear of darkness where there shouldn’t have been one.
Another appeared farther back, then another, slipping between trunks and rocks, never quite solid, never quite gone.
“They’re shadow scouts,” Bella said softly, her fox senses clearly picking up more than my eyes could.
“At least they’re not shadow hunters,” Twobble whispered.
“Yet,” Stella added.
I slowed, lifting my hand to signal the group to hold. The vampires drew in subtly, their movements smooth and coordinated, while the shifters along the edges adjusted their spacing, creating a loose but unmistakable perimeter.
But doubt curled tight in my chest.
Had I made a mistake bringing everyone together like this? Vampires, shifters, witches, goblins, all moving in one bright, impossible line.
We weren’t subtle. We were a beacon.
“They’re marking us,” Nova murmured.
One of the shadow-creatures lifted what might have been a head, its form rippling like smoke disturbed by breath. For a heartbeat, I thought it might speak.
Instead, it sank back into the ground and vanished.
“Great,” Twobble said, adjusting his seat on the bramblemule. “We’re memorable.”
The warmth at my hip pulsed once, sharper this time, and I knew without question that the Priestess was watching through those shadows, tasting our movement, counting our numbers. She wasn’t afraid of this gathering.
She was intrigued.
I resumed walking, my steps measured, my thoughts racing. Every instinct I had told me to scatter, to make ourselves smaller, harder to track. But I’d already chosen another path, one built on visibility and unity, and now I had to live with the consequences.
“She wants us nervous,” I said quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “Second-guessing. She could have hidden those shadows.”
Keegan fell into step beside me, his presence steady and solid. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Nervous.”
I hesitated, then nodded. “A little. Bringing everyone together made us stronger, but it also made us obvious.”
He considered that for a moment, then said, “Visibility can be power.”
I glanced at him. “Or a target.”
“Both,” he replied easily. “But hiding never stopped her before. It just made her pick people off one by one.”
I exhaled slowly. He certainly wasn’t wrong. Stonewick had survived as long as it had because it learned when to stand in shadow and when to step into the light. Maybe this was one of those moments.
Ahead, the trees thinned slightly, opening into a shallow glade where the light felt wrong, filtered through something unseen.
The familiar fence that we followed along to the Northern Luminary appeared, but I stopped suddenly the moment I saw it.
A symbol etched briefly into the bark of a maple tree, black against gold, lines too precise to be natural. It pulsed once, twice, then began to fade.
I stopped dead.
Nova inhaled sharply. “That’s her.”
The sigil vanished as if it had never been there, the bark smoothing over, the tree’s magic rushing to erase the intrusion.
“What does it mean?” Bella asked.
Nova’s expression was grim.
“It means she’s no longer content to watch from afar. She’s laying claim. Letting us know she’s aware.”
“I thought her shadow buddies did a good enough job of that already.” Twobble frowned.
“More of her games,” I whispered.
This wasn’t a warning meant to scare us back. It was a marker, a promise that the race had begun.
I straightened, lifting my chin as if the Priestess herself could see me through the trees. “We don’t slow down.”
The warmth at my hip flared in response.
Whatever came next, one thing was clear.
She knew where we were going, and she intended to make sure we felt every step of the way.
We stopped just long enough to breathe, which felt ironic considering how little breathing anyone seemed inclined to do.
We moved into a shallow wooded basin where the light dimmed into a coppery twilight, the kind that made it hard to tell whether it was early morning or late afternoon.
The ground here felt older, compacted by centuries of passing things that had known better than to linger. It was the sort of place travelers used instinctively, even if they didn’t know why.
Lady Limora was the first to speak.
“Now that we have a little cover, we need to decide whether we move faster,” she said calmly, her voice carrying without effort. “Or smarter.”
Several of the vampires gathered close, their attention sharp and focused. They weren’t anxious, exactly, but I could feel the tension in them, a subtle vibration like glassware set too close together.
Keegan stood beside me, arms crossed loosely, gaze sweeping the perimeter. Caleb lingered a few steps away with two other alphas, their posture relaxed but alert, like wolves pretending they weren’t paying attention to everything at once.
“It’s a race,” I said, stating the obvious because sometimes it helped to hear it aloud. “We have to reach the orcs before she does.”
Caleb nodded once. “She knows you’re moving,” he said. “But she isn’t.”
That caught my attention. “You’re sure?”
“Our scouts would feel it,” he replied.
“You sent scouts?” I asked in surprise.
“We did.”
“Thank you.”
“Shadowick leaves a trail. Whatever she’s doing, she’s still anchored where she is.”
“That gives us an advantage,” Nova said from where she crouched near the edge of the basin, fingertips brushing the soil. “Momentum matters.”
Stella hummed softly. “I’ve always said she hates to rush. She prefers to let the world come to her.”
“Which means she’s counting on them to fight us and find her,” I said. “She wants desperation to do her work for her.”
Lady Limora’s gaze sharpened. “Then we cannot allow that desperation to fester.”
I rubbed my palms together, trying to quiet the nervous energy thrumming through me. “We need to beat her to the orcs.”
“Great. So we’re focusing on speed rather than smarts,” Twobble muttered, and the vampires chuckled.
Caleb studied me. “Persuasion won’t be easy.”
“I know,” I said. “They’re frightened and displaced, and likely angry. And they have every reason not to trust someone offering another path when all the others have failed them.”
“Hangry orcs.” Twobble shook his head. “Is it too late for me to sit this one out?”
I smiled and patted his head while he sat atop the bramblemule.
Keegan glanced at me. “You still think you’re the right one to do this? I don’t mind going to talk to them.”
I hesitated, then nodded. “I feel like it should come from me.”
Lady Limora smiled faintly. “You speak like someone who understands how monsters are made.”
“Monsters,” Stella muttered, “are usually just people who weren’t listened to soon enough.”
“Ouch,” Skonk said, shaking his head. “That hits home.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened, bringing the discussion back to logistics. “If they’re already marching, stopping them will feel like asking them to step off a cliff.”
“Then we don’t ask them to stop,” I said. “We ask them to pause.”
“We can shorten the distance,” she said. “Not by bending the path, but by aligning with it. We should be able to warp the Priestess’ distortion.”
I blinked. “Explain that in a way that doesn’t make my head hurt.”
She smiled faintly. “We should split up and move as swiftly as possible, but reconvene right before we hit the orcs.”
Caleb nodded immediately. “Packs know how to travel unseen.”
Lady Limora inclined her head. “And vampires know how to move quickly without drawing attention.”
Keegan exhaled slowly. “Splitting up.”
“Temporarily,” I said quickly. “We converge before the final approach.”
There was a beat of silence as everyone weighed the risks.
“If she’s watching,” Stella said, “she’ll notice the change.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But she’ll have to guess which thread matters most.”
Lady Limora’s eyes gleamed. “I like it.”
Caleb glanced toward the north, where the trees thickened into darker shapes. “We can send scouts ahead to confirm the orcs’ exact position. If they’re slowing near the Luminary, we’ll have a window before they make it to the Hollows.”
“And if they aren’t receptive?” Keegan asked.
“Then we run,” Caleb said simply.
A few vampires laughed, which was needed.
I swallowed, nodding. “We don’t engage unless we have to. The goal isn’t to fight them. It’s to reach them intact.”
Nova tilted her head. “And if the Priestess accelerates?”
“Then she’s reacting,” I said. “And reaction is slower than intent.”
Lady Limora stepped closer, her voice lowering.
“You should know,” she said, “that if this fails, she will not retreat.”
“I know,” I replied. “But if we succeed, she loses leverage.”
“And that buys us time,” my dad said with a nod.
Caleb studied my face, something like respect settling into his expression.
“You’re not trying to win,” he said. “You’re trying to prevent her from cornering them.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because once she has them desperate and isolated, there won’t be a way back.”
Keegan’s hand brushed mine, grounding. “Then let’s not give her that opening.”
The decision was settled among us, and the group began to move, vampires pairing off, shifters slipping into fluid motion, Nova murmuring coordinates under her breath.
“She may know we’re out here,” I said softly, more to myself than anyone else. “But at least, we’re already moving.”
This wasn’t about beating her in a show of power. It was about arriving with enough time, enough compassion, enough truth to offer the orcs something other than manipulation.
The air shifted around us, paths unfurling like possibilities.
And with the Priestess watching from wherever she waited, we broke into motion, racing not just against her, but against the moment desperation became destiny.