Chapter Thirty-One
Adrian
Adrian woke with a gasp, Connor’s arms tight around him.
Xiathen knelt beside the bed, his eyes wide. “You both vanished. The mark. Oh gods, the mark has changed again.”
Adrian looked down. The sigils no longer flickered. They glowed with two intertwined colours: the Veil’s violet and Connor’s wolf gold.
Connor exhaled slowly, brushing hair from Adrian’s forehead.
“Next time,” Adrian murmured, his voice hoarse, “we’re taking a nap instead of fighting the metaphysical embodiment of your psyche.”
Connor huffed a laugh, raw and disbelieving. “Aye. I’ll put it on the schedule. I saw your story as well. But that’s a tale for another time.”
Adrian leaned his head on Connor’s shoulder.
Xiathen inhaled shakily. “There will be consequences.”
Connor kissed Adrian’s temple. “We’ll face him.”
Adrian’s fingers curled into Connor’s shirt. “Together.”
Outside the castle, across the valley, every fault line, every anchor, and every glowing crack pulsed once, in time with the beating of two hearts.
***
Connor
The following morning, Alicia found him before he’d made it three steps into the room where he was about to address his pack.
She barrelled into his legs with the single-minded force only a six-year-old recovering from a very frightening week could manage, and Connor caught her out of habit, swinging her up onto his hip without breaking stride.
She smelled of woodsmoke and the peppermint Moira kept for scaring off winter colds.
“You’re not dead,” she informed him solemnly, as though she’d been keeping a list and was pleased to strike him off it.
“Not yet, dèan,” Connor said. “Working on staying that way.”
“Good.” She considered this settled, then moved briskly on to matters of actual importance. “Moira says if you’re all done saving everyone by the twenty-fifth, we can still do the tree. She’s already got the box down from the east tower. It has the sad angel in it. The one with half a wing.”
Behind him, Connor heard Fraser make a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a snort.
“The twenty-fifth,” Connor repeated slowly.
“Christmas,” Alicia said, with the withering patience of someone explaining the obvious to a particularly slow adult. “It’s coming. It comes every year, Uncle Connor, that’s rather the point of it.”
Twelve days. He hadn’t let himself count until just now, and the number landed harder than he’d expected—a date sitting there in the ordinary world, indifferent to fault lines and rends and whatever the Council intended to do to Heatherfell before it arrived.
Twelve days for a valley that couldn’t currently promise itself twelve hours.
“We’ll do the tree,” he heard himself say. “Sad angel and all.”
“Even if there’s more monsters?”
“Especially if there’s more monsters.” He set her down, and she scampered off toward Moira with the news, already negotiating the finer points of tinsel allocation.
Adrian appeared at his shoulder, unfairly composed for a man who’d nearly died twice in the last day. “Monsters permitting,” he murmured, “I do hope this castle has decent mulled wine. I refuse to face Hogmanay sober, whatever the Veil has planned for us.”
“You’re looking forward to Hogmanay now, are you?”
“I was invited by a seven-year-old with very firm opinions about angel repair. I don’t see how I could possibly decline.” Adrian’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Connor. Twelve days.”
“Aye,” Connor said, and the word came out rougher than he meant it to. “I heard her.”
Neither of them said what they were both thinking—that the valley’s calendar and the human one had stopped keeping the same time weeks ago, and that whatever waited for them out past the solstice might not particularly care whether Alicia got her tree up first.
***
Connor stood in the dining hall, looking over the people gathered there.
He felt a sense of pride at them all, two packs, but one with him and Adrian in their loyalty and strength.
Well, most of them. Some were scared beyond the bond of clanship.
Others, like Garrett, simply sneered their way through it all.
Adrian sat beside him, his breath uneven, the mark beneath his shirt glowing like a star that refused to die quietly.
Max stood behind Adrian with a hand on the back of his chair, a silent guardian. Fraser mirrored him behind Connor, his arms folded tightly. Moira hovered near the tea service like a general guarding medical supplies.
Tension thrummed like a nerve. Finally, Connor slammed a palm on the table. “We start now.”
All the clan members fell silent.
Xiathen rose, his robes whispering. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice.”
A humourless snort came from one of the Gauthiers. “Not like we had much choice.”
Connor’s gaze snapped at the speaker, Laurence, and the man shut his mouth instantly.
Xiathen continued. “The valley is destabilising. The Council of Veils has placed anchors throughout the land, using fault lines to weaken the barrier between our world and his.”
“And they’ve marked my First,” Max said darkly, nodding at Adrian. “Let’s not pretend that isn’t the main bloody problem.”
Adrian’s fingers dug into the chair. He opened his mouth to reply, but Connor beat him to it.
“The main problem,” Connor growled, “is the bastards threatening to tear open the valley unless we hand Adrian over.”
A ripple of dread passed through the room.
Piper, sitting rigid beside Max, pressed a hand to her chest. “They can’t possibly expect—”
“They do,” Xiathen said quietly. “They always demand what they believe is owed.”
“And what they believe is owed,” Irial said, her voice shaking, “is him.”
Everyone looked at Adrian.
Adrian swallowed. “I didn’t ask to be marked. I didn’t want this. I’m trying—”
The table shook. Connor’s wolf surged. His voice cut across Adrian’s. “He’s not to blame.”
The words hit the room with the force of a blow. The mark throbbed on Adrian’s skin, answering Connor before Adrian could.
Across the table, Laird whispered, “Gods. It glows when Connor speaks.”
Xiathen cleared his throat delicately. “It would appear the bond between the Valours is more active than it should be.”
Connor ignored that. “For the sake of clarity,” he snapped, “no one is handing Adrian to the Council.”
“You don’t get to decide that for all of us,” Laurence said, his voice rising toward panic. “You can’t doom the entire valley because you have some attachment—”
Connor moved in a blur of fury. One moment he was on his side of the table, the next he was inches from Laurence, the chair knocked aside, his wolf snarling.
“Finish that sentence,” Connor bit out, “and I’ll teach you the meaning of silence.”
“Connor,” Adrian said, standing and grabbing Connor’s arm. “He has a right to speak. People have the right to be afraid.”
Slowly, Connor’s wolf receded. Silence rang in the chamber as he stepped back, his muscles tight and his breath hard.
Fraser muttered, “Bloody hell.”
Xiathen lifted his hands. “Let us regain structure. We can’t afford infighting. The Council’s deadline is approaching.”
“Deadline?” Fraser scoffed. “It’s an ultimatum. A threat. And we don’t negotiate with threats.”
“That’s noble,” Laurence said coldly, “until the ground swallows your home.”
Fraser opened his mouth, then shut it. Connor grunted. Laurence was right.
Xiathen turned to Adrian. “Do you feel any change in the mark?”
Adrian pressed a hand to his chest. “It hungers. It pulses when the anchors do. It reacts to the fault lines. And it listens to Connor.”
Connor’s jaw tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The mark dampened when you held me last night. The Heartline collapsed because your vow wove into it. It responds to you, Connor. Almost as if it knows you.”
Xiathen nodded. “The Council intended to mark Adrian alone. But when Connor followed him into the Veil, the bond rewrote the sigils.”
“You mean,” Max said, “our Valours are now even more magically tied to both worlds?”
“And to each other,” Xiathen corrected softly.
Everyone murmured. The tension grew thicker. Connor sat beside Adrian, turning the chair so he faced the table directly. His hand remained close to Adrian’s, not touching, but ready.
“So we fight,” Connor said. “What’s the plan?”
Xiathen replied. “There are three paths.”
Every person in the room leaned in. Xiathen’s voice grew heavy. “Path One. Sacrifice. The Council takes Adrian. The valley remains intact.”
Connor’s growl shook the table.
Adrian closed his eyes. “Next.”
“Path Two. Severance. We sever the mark,” Xiathen continued. “Cut Adrian free.”
“How?” Adrian whispered.
Xiathen hesitated. “Violently. At great risk. And potentially fatal.”
Adrian’s breath caught. Connor’s chair screeched as he stood abruptly. “Absolutely not.”
Xiathen closed his eyes. “I didn’t say it was an option I liked.
” He took a deep breath. “Path Three. Defiance. The valley rallies behind the Valours. The land knows who its people are. Connor has gained powers, and we have Irial and I. We strike the anchors. Destroy them. Break the Council’s system for breaching our world. ”
Adrian stared. “Can we?”
Xiathen hesitated. And that hesitation made the entire room go cold. “It is possible,” Xiathen said finally. “But it requires a tether strong enough to shield the valley while the anchors are broken.”
“And?” Connor demanded.
“And that tether,” Xiathen whispered, “is the bond.”
Connor’s voice was low. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Xiathen said gently, “the two of you must stabilise the valley’s cracks by sharing the mark’s burden.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “Please tell me in layman’s terms what that means. My brain is being fried by all the mystery and doublespeak.”
“The fault lines react to Adrian,” Xiathen said. “But they also react to you. If both of you channel your bond at once, the mark may split its leash and spread its strain. Two minds. Two souls. Two bodies. We call it the March.”
“And if we do that,” Adrian asked, “the valley stabilises?”
“Yes.”
“And if we don’t?”
Xiathen didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Everyone knew the valley would collapse.
Connor sat down again, leaning forward, his eyes locked on Adrian. “Well?” he asked softly. “What do you want to do?”
Adrian looked at the people around the table. Then he looked at Connor and exhaled. “I know what option you’d pick.” He smiled faintly. “So I guess defiance it is.”
The room murmured, some in relief, some in dread. Connor closed his eyes in relief.
Xiathen bowed his head. “Then we prepare. Tonight, the Valours walk the fault lines themselves.”
Max swore under his breath. Fraser muttered a prayer. Piper whispered, “May the Gods watch over you both.”
And every anchor in the valley pulsed deep beneath the earth in answer.