Page 181 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

His brow was damp with sweat. He was too cold, too still. She brushed the long bangs back from his forehead with shaking fingers. He simply watched as she did it.

The skin beneath his hair was smooth. There was no scar.

Her hand jerked back as if she’d touched something dead.

Her stomach clenched hard against the sickness rising in her throat. His face was too perfect. The lines of old wounds she’d learned to recognize had softened—blurred like a memory copied too many times.

“No. You’re not…”

She stumbled backward, slipping on slick stone, desperate to get away. Realization slammed into her. Not Orzen at all. Silas. She’d been so stupid. So hopeful, she hadn’t let herself see the truth.

Fury flowed through her, hot and reckless, heart pounding so hard it blurred her vision as the tree’s wound pulsed in answer. Spirit swelled in her chest. More power than she’d ever drawn, swirling between her fingers, aching to be released. Her hands shook with the effort to hold it all back.

“Where is Orzen!” she growled, silver threads darkening at the edges. “What have you done with him?”

Silas grinned, a smile so wide it pulled Orzen’s features into a nightmarish mockery that froze the blood in her veins.

“He’s too far to reach you now.”

You can end him. The whisper slithered into her mind like a balm. Make him pay for your pain.

One second of hesitation was all she had before her Spirit surged. Blackened threads lashed toward Silas. They twisted from her, skidding past, slamming into the tree behind him—sinking hungrily into the wound in the Binding Bough.

Her mark screamed. White-hot agony tore through her as the power pulled—dragging the magic from her even as she fought to claw it back. Her body vibrated with horror and loss, rage and shame swelling within her.

“NO!” A cry, desperate and cracked, echoed behind her.

Her grip on the weave faltered when she recognized the voice. A crash of branches followed as Orzen—the real one—appeared at the edge of the temple. He was alive. Running toward the Heart. Toward her. Tears gathered at the edges of her eyes when she saw the desperation on his face.

She tried to hold on tighter to the weave, but it ripped through her fingers.

With a bitter laugh—a twisted version of the one the real Orzen rarely shared—Silas released a bolt of corrupted Spirit toward the columns. A wall of briars cut the opening off, separating them.

“WREN!” Orzen cried out from the other side.

The tendril of hope she’d been clinging to died. Threads slithered through her fingers like serpents. Blackened Spirit bled from her hands. Her body went rigid, refusing her commands. Her hooves lifted from the stone.

She screamed, but no sound came.

A massive pulse of dark energy ripped out of her, dragged free as the Binding Bough fed—pouring like a burst valve into the wounded heart of the tree, emptying her from the inside out.

The last thing she heard was laughter—deep and grating—a hiss of terrible, triumphant joy. Darkness closed in.

And still, the tree consumed.

Chapter 47

Through Briar and Flame

Jagged thorns carved through Orzen’s armor. They sliced his knuckles until his palms were slick with blood. His grip on the sword slipped. He struck anyway—again, and again—too focused on the wall to care what it cost him. Every time he blinked, he saw his own face—distorted with horrific glee—beaming as Wren was yanked from her hooves, corrupted Spirit bursting from her.

He’d been sure he could follow Silas, trap or kill him before he could hurt Wren. If he hadn’t been so stupid…he’d doomed her. If Velhya hadn’t found him in the woods…

He was a fool. This was his fault. He had to reach her.

Orzen reared back to strike again, but his arm stopped short—muscles frozen in an instant. Velhya stepped from behind him, eyes shining with silver light, fingers tensed like she was tugging threads he couldn’t see.

A growl of frustration lodged in his throat.