Page 72 of Elemental Becoming

His gaze sharpens.

“What I know so far is it was something the Warden feared above all else. Something he was willing to sacrificeeverythingto contain. But he never described it outright.” He pauses. “Only named it.”

He glances down briefly, as if seeing the page again.

“An ‘overpowering invasive evil, corrupting everything with an insatiable appetite . . . blackening souls and seeding decay . . . ’” he quotes from the journal.

The words sink.

The Unmaking.

The room feels colder. Firelight flickers against the walls, shadows stretching and shifting with it.

I swallow. “Feared enough to seal in the Shadow Realm?”

Valen nods.

Thane’s fingers tighten around his mug.

None of us speak. The weight of it seems to smother.

Valen leans back, his expression unreadable. “I’ll need time.”

I blink. “Time for what?”

“To look deeper.” His gaze shifts toward the shelves along the far wall, lined with tomes, scrolls, and artifacts gathered over years. “If Sylas wrote it down, there’s more. According to what I’ve read so far, he wasn’t one to waste words.”

His attention lingers there. “I just need to know where to look.”

I nod, though the unease in my stomach doesn’t lessen.

Valen doesn’t add anything else. He’s already turning inward, his focus narrowing, fingers tapping once against the tablebefore stilling again.

Across from me, Thane exhales, his shoulders rising and falling with a measured breath. Then he pushes back his chair. The scrape of wood against stone cuts through the quiet.

“I have to go.”

It isn’t a surprise. He told me this morning he’d be heading to the Water Clan outpost. Still, my stomach tightens. There’s too much we don’t know. Too much we haven’t seen coming.

I look at him. “It’s already time?”

He nods. “The strategy meeting.”

For a moment, I considered telling him to stay. Not because I need him here, but because I know the weight he already carries—and now we’ve added to it.

But I don’t. This is war. There’s no standing still.

Thane turns to Valen. “If you find anything, send word.”

Valen barely looks up from Sylas’s journal, already focused, already searching. “I will.”

Thane watches him for a moment longer, then turns to me. His gaze lingers.

“I shouldn’t be gone long.”

I nod, even though we both know there’s no telling how long he’ll be gone. “Be careful.”

Instead of answering, he leans in. His hand cradles my jaw as he presses his lips to mine. The kiss is brief, but there’s weight behind it; it is an anchor, a promise, something meant to last longer than the moment itself.