Chapter 99
They had barely settled before footsteps thundered down the hall.
Caelan burst through the warded door, face pale beneath his freckles, travel-dust on his coat. He saw Poppy and then turned to see Mingxi wrapped around her like a living barrier.
“Oh, gods,” he muttered. “You already know.”
“Know what?” Mingxi snarled.
Caelan held up a scroll stamped with the Western Council’s sun-and-sea sigil. “They’ve confirmed something.” His voice shook. “The Devouring One never died. It splintered. And one of its higher fragments—the conscious kind—is unaccounted for.”
Poppy’s breath faltered.
Mingxi’s tails flared in visceral fury. “Where is it?” he demanded.
“Unknown.” Caelan swallowed. “But the Council agrees with your elders—something is stirring in the East.”
Poppy pressed a hand to her chest.
She could still feel the faint tremor beneath her ribs.
Caelan hesitated. “There’s one more thing.” He extended another sealed letter. “The Western Council had a dream-seer confirm a prophecy. They said, ‘The moonwell’s chosen will cry out when the shard awakens.’”
Poppy stiffened.
Mingxi’s eyes widened. “Cry out?” he echoed.
Caelan nodded. “They mean the moonwell. Not the fragment.”
By the time the sanctuary quieted, the elders withdrew, and Caelan went to deliver news to Mingzhao, Poppy could barely keep her eyes open. Mingxi tucked her against his chest, tails cocooned around them.
“Sleep,” he whispered.
“I’ll try.”
“I’ll keep watch.”
She didn’t argue.
Her eyelids grew heavy, and silver light swirled at the edge of her vision.
She was standing in the moonwell grove. Not the corrupted version. Not the healed one. But something older. The trees were taller than mountains. The ground glowed with argent veins. The air tasted like moonlight turned to water.
The moonwell pulsed before her —no longer a pool, no longer a spring, but a living heart. It flickered. Not with malice, nor hunger.
It was filled…with fear.
Poppy’s breath hitched. “You’re alive.”
A ripple answered—soft, desperate. The moonwell’s voice wasn’t a voice at all. It was a feeling. A pressure. A plea. A trembling hand reaching for hers.
“Help.” It pressed the word into her ribs.
Poppy stepped closer. “I don’t know how.”
Another ripple. Shaking. Fading… danger, shard, wake, wrong. The light dimmed. Silver bled to gray.
Poppy reached out instinctively. “It hurt you? The fragment?”
The moonwell flared weakly. “Protect. Child. Line.”
Poppy froze. “What?”
The moonwell’s pulse turned frantic, urgent, begging. Before she could ask more, a shadow slid beneath the surface. Not the fragment. Not corruption. Something older.
Something like the outline of an eclipse.
The moonwell’s light surged in terror. “Not it. Not me.”
“RUN!”
The dream shattered.
Poppy jerked awake with a gasp. Mingxi was already up, blades drawn, eyes blazing silver. He seized her shoulders.
“What happened? What did you see?”
She grabbed his wrists. “It wasn’t the fragment.”
“What wasn’t?”
“It wasn’t calling me.” Her breath trembled. “It wasn’t reaching for me.”
Mingxi froze. “Then who—”
“The moonwell,” she whispered.
“It’s begging us for help.”