Page 125 of Unveiled

Xiathen smiled. “The forest isn’t asking for love. Or sex. It’s asking whether you stand as one when it matters. An alignment of purpose, instinct, and direction. It needs you to grow roots and stand together no matter what.”

Connor took Adrian’s hands and didn’t look away as he spoke. “Then hear this,” he said, voice low and iron-steady. “I will not run. Not from the Council. Not from the truth. And I won’t leave you to face any of it alone. I will always stand here. Immovable. With roots so deep you’d have to go to Middle Earth and back to unearth me.”

Adrian felt the words in his chest. Like something settling into place.

He lifted his chin, meeting Connor’s gaze. No bravado. No flourish.

“And I will not be taken,” Adrian said quietly. “Not from this land. Not from my people. Not from you. Whatever comes: storms, shadows, gods who think the world is a board to be played, I stand here. With you.”

The forest answered. Not with light. Not with thunder. With weight.

Roots pressed close beneath the ground, old and vast. The wind shifted, circling them the same way it circled standing stones.

Xiathen exhaled, reverent. “That will do,” they murmured. “The forest has what it needs.”

The forest whispered: Resonance found.

A soft wind wrapped around the two men, caressing them with warm tendrils.

Connor wrapped his arms around Adrian with a certainty that melted him from the inside out.

“I think the Wood is blessing us,” Connor murmured.

“No,” Xiathen whispered from behind him. “It is arming you.”

A pulse of light rippled through the forest floor.

A second. A third. Then the trees spoke one final time: Valours. Walk the path. Break the anchors. Protect the world. And do not fail as they did. For if you fall…the Veil will not mend again.

Silence swallowed the grove.

Connor exhaled shakily. “Well. That’s subtle. No pressure there.”

Adrian laughed. “They showed us death, fear, love, and destiny all in one conversation.”

“That’s nature for you,” Connor murmured.

Xiathen cleared their throat softly. “We must return. The valley will feel your new resonance. And the Council will too.”

As they walked back toward the castle, the wind carried one last whisper.

A warning: They come. Prepare the anchors. Prepare the wolves. Prepare the Valours.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Connor

The Whispering Wood did not let go of them easily.

Even after Connor and Adrian stepped back across the old boundary stones, long after the last whisper fell silent, the forest’s presence clung to them like unseen fingers. A weight in the chest. A hum in the bones. A pressure under the skin that felt too much like someone watching from behind the veil of the world.

It started with Adrian’s shadow.

Back in the castle courtyard, Moira was the first to notice it. She froze mid-step, spoon halfway to a pot of stew.

“Connor,” she whispered. “His shadow.”

Connor turned and his breath caught. Adrian’s shadow didn’t move with him. The man took one step forward and his shadow hesitated a heartbeat behind, as though reluctant to follow. A second step, and the shadow flickered, elongated, and twisted into something too tall, too thin, too aware before snapping back into place.