Page 182 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

“Let me go! She’s in there alone!”

“You will not reach her in time if you do not focus.” Velhya’s eyes flashed. “I will let you free, but you must listen.”

She released the weave, and the strike finished, cleaving into the vines and sticking. When he yanked his sword free, the gash oozed black sludge. It didn’t last. The wound in the vines knit together once more like he’d never struck it at all.

A gust blew against the briars, Garin’s magic brushing them, testing their weight. “Not just normal growth.” His expression turned grim. “Steel alone won’t do it. Needs your fire.”

“There has to be another way. It doesn’t listen to me!” Orzen shouted hopelessly. He wiped the blood from his hands onto his armor, clenching the hilt again. “You can use fire, Velhya!”

The briars shifted. Crevices opened and closed like gaping wounds. Wren hung suspended in the air, gripped by an unseen hand beyond the wall. Her limbs went rigid, head thrown back in a soundless scream. Her eyes blackened and empty.

“We’re out of time,” Orzen snarled. “Velhya—do something!”

“I cannot do this for you,” she said, infuriatingly gentle.

Rage surged, and still the fire evaded him. “Why not? She’ll die before we reach her.” His hand shook on his sword. “Help me!”

She studied him so long with her golden eyes that the muscles in his jaw ached from clenching the anger back. “It is not simply this wall that holds you from her,” she said, voice low and solemn. “If you do not calm your mind, you will lose her anyway.”

Garin stepped closer—a man approaching a cornered beast. “Stop fighting it. If we attack at once, we’ve got a chance.”

Orzen clenched his fist around the sword, panic rising as heat built in his chest. Releasing it now—desperate and afraid—would destroy them all.

“I can’t!” He looked between them urgently. “Every time I reach for it, it slips. It burns everything.”

“You can,” Garin said, gripping his staff so hard his knuckles whitened. “You have to. She needs you.”

The vines parted and closed. Voices rose behind the wall. Witherborn gathered, kneeling, chanting in hollow tones around the base of the tree as the wound pulsed faster. Swirling shadows of darkened Spirit engulfed Wren. She was losing. The color drained from her hair, silver replacing brown with every second he wasted.

She needed him.

Orzen had controlled it easily before, so long ago it was barely a memory. Brannon had been a Fire Weaver, too. He’d taught Orzen to hold the flames in his hands, call them, bend them to his will. But that was before the forge burned. Didn’t matter that he hadn’t killed his father…he’d carried destruction in his veins ever since.

Rage alone wouldn’t work. He needed to focus. Orzen reached for the memory of weaving as a child, the easy way he’d summoned it—like exhaling the heat from his lungs.

He turned his attention to his breathing. Focused on letting go—trusting it to come. He strained for the sparks, urging them to respond. His limbs shook. His chest ached. It was like punching through stone with bare hands. Panic swelled.

Brannon’s voice, deep as the earth itself, echoed through him.

Weaving is a tool, boy. Up to the wielder to use it for good.

He pictured his father, dark eyes full of pride. None of it had been Orzen’s fault. Not the fire. Not the forge. Not the man he’d turned into while trying to survive in the aftermath.

The emberkits hadn’t been afraid. They’d trusted him. Wren did too. She believed he could be better. He wasn’t the man he’d been before. And she needed him. He couldn’t fail her. Not now.

He pressed against the fear. The block cracked within him.

Warmth seeped through, hesitant and fragile, as if the flame was also afraid he would shy away from it. He didn’t. He reached for more. Heat howled through him. It soared down his arms and into his fingers.

His heart thudded deep in his chest. Light flared through his closed eyelids. He opened them. Blue flame erupted along his sword, flickering up the blade. Garin’s hand pounded on his shoulder. Orzen let out a cry of relief.

For the first time, he wasn’t afraid.

“Now!” Velhya called.

Wind tore past him. Flames arced as he swung the sword. The earth roiled beneath him. The attacks hit at once—Air, Fire, Earth—slamming into the briar wall with a thunderous clap. The vines shuddered, withered, and tore. They peeled back as they burned.

The way opened into chaos. Witherborn bellowed when the wall split. As one, they rose—twisted figures made of bark and bone. At the far edge of the temple, stood the monster that had once been Silas. Rootflesh. Black-veined skin stretched over elongated limbs crusted in flaking wood. It cackled like the intrusion was a mere inconvenience.