Chapter 70
The valley answered Poppy’s plea.
The ground shivered. The air tightened. The moonwell tilted toward something unseen, and a thin stream at the valley’s edge began to swell, moonlight shimmering across it.
The revenants hesitated.
Lysandra’s corrupted eye narrowed.
Poppy felt it before she saw it, a massive presence moving beneath the water. The stream rose.
Higher.
Higher.
A wall of water erupted upward and hurled itself across the valley. It smashed into the revenants, crushing Mingxi, flinging them off him in a spray of bone and ash. The bone-wolf flew backward, sigils sizzling where the water touched it.
The wave curled back—darkened and condensed—and a massive black seal landed with a thundering splash. The seal dissolved like melting shadow, and the water peeled away from the shape inside, revealing him.
A man. Tall. Broad-shouldered.
Moonlit water dripping from armor etched with storm-runes, dark hair clinging to his jaw in wet strands, streaked with silver. Skin pale as seafoam. Presence ancient as tides.
But his eyes—storm-blue, silver-ringed—found Lysandra first.
Her left eye flinched. Her right eye gleamed black. The entity smiled through her cracked porcelain half.
He didn’t smile back.
His voice rolled like distant thunder, “You do not belong here.”
Lysandra’s layered voice answered without hesitation, “Neither do you, Seaborn.”
Revenants charged him. The man didn’t move at first, and the stream behind him surged like a living creature. He swept his arm outward. A tidal serpent of water erupted from the ground and slammed into the undead. Bodies shattered. Sigils extinguished. Ash exploded across the clearing.
Mingxi dragged himself back onto shaking paws, five tails low but burning. His gold eyes flicked between Poppy and the stranger—and tightened.
Poppy couldn’t look away.
The man finally turned fully toward her. The moonwell’s glow curved around him, drawn to the same tide-call that lived in his bones. He stepped forward, water dripping from his lashes, voice lowering into something deep and solemn.
“The tides heard you, moonborn,” he said. “And I answered.”
Poppy forgot how to breathe.
Mingxi’s ears flattened, and fire rippled down his back.
But the man wasn’t done. He lifted his trident—moonlit metal shaped from water—and pointed it toward Lysandra.
“And so did it,” he said.
Lysandra’s corrupted half tilted her head. Cracks glowed obsidian.
Her voice came out layered and smooth. “Let us begin.”
The valley held its breath.
The stranger stood dripping in moonlit water, trident at his side, storm-blue eyes locked on Poppy. He looked carved from the ocean itself, calm and impossibly present.
Poppy stared back before she realized she was staring. Her pulse skipped.
Mingxi seemed to notice immediately. His ears flattened, five tails stiff behind him. Foxfire crackled around his arms.
“Stop looking at him like that,” Mingxi muttered sharply.
The stranger’s gaze shifted from Poppy to Mingxi, lingering on the foxfire, on how closely Mingxi stood at her side. His attention returned to Poppy, sharp and assessing. Poppy felt her magic stir, leaning toward Mingxi without her bidding. Something shifted in his expression, subtle but certain.
“Ah,” he said quietly. “So that is what the tide pulled me toward.”
Poppy blinked. “What?”
The man tilted his head, looking at Poppy and then at Mingxi, clearly studying the space between them.
“Your spirits are twined,” he said. “The bond is incomplete, but unmistakable. Foxfire wrapped around moonlight. You are mates.”
Poppy choked on air.
Mingxi’s entire face flushed red.
“We are not mates!” Mingxi snapped.
“We are not anything!” Poppy said at the same time.
Lysandra’s corrupted right side smiled, the cracked-black porcelain gleaming under the moonlight. Her bright-blue left eye trembled.
Her layered voice rolled out, rich with amusement and cruel. “Oh, she felt that.”
Poppy’s face went even redder. “I did not! That’s not what happened! I didn’t feel anything!”
The entity laughed through Lysandra. “Your heart leaped,” it said. “You stand between foxfire and tide-born, pulled toward both. Sweet little Moonborn.”
Mingxi growled, stepping closer to Poppy.
“Who are you?” Mingxi demanded, leveling the stranger with a fierce glare.
The man did not rise to the challenge. Instead, he looked at Poppy again, calm and steady.
“I am Caelan. I will not interfere in a mate bond,” he said. “But I will protect her.”
“She has me!” Mingxi shot back.
Caelan finally looked directly at him. “And you nearly died beneath a corpse-beast a moment ago.”
Mingxi sputtered with outrage, foxfire surging bright.
Poppy was so embarrassed she considered leaping into the moonwell.
Lysandra’s corrupted half leaned forward slightly, enjoying every flicker of tension.
“So much heat,” the entity purred. “So much jealousy. The moonwell tastes it beautifully.”
Poppy threw her hands over her face. “Lysandra, please stop!”
Before anyone could say another word, more revenants burst from the tree line, dragging the battlefield back into motion.