Page 183 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

Its black eyes fixed on Orzen. “Target the human!”

“We’ll take him,” Garin shouted. “Get to Wren.”

“For the Glade!” Velhya called. Wind and stone erupted around her as she charged.

Orzen dashed toward the tree, barely registering the arms clawing for him. The sword moved with him, carving through anything that dared get close enough. Fire followed in its wake. For once, it obeyed without hesitation.

Beyond the Witherborn, the tree consumed, the wound widening as Wren’s body shuddered before it. Every moment, she slipped further from him.

A Witherborn’s claws stretched toward him, needle-like nails catching and piercing through his armor. Pain seared through his chest, but with a lunge, he darted aside and separated limb from body, then rolled away and kept running.

With a rumble, a root as thick as a man erupted from the ground beside Orzen. It slammed into a row of columns at the edge of the temple. They wobbled, stones as large as wagons landing like thunderclaps between him and the tree, blocking his path. They crushed Witherborn to dust as they landed.

He rolled aside, one boulder falling with a crash where he’d been only seconds before. Shoving himself upright, flames surging higher, he darted around the last boulder. The path was open once more—save for the dozens of Witherborn he’d need to cut down to reach her.

Roots snaked around his ankles. He reeled, sword clattering to the ground and sliding away. With a flick of his wrist, he yanked a dagger free. In one motion, he sliced through the coil and jammed it back into his belt. Fighting with it would mean getting too close to the Witherborn. Only his fists and flames now.

Wren and the tree were further away, silver hair glinting in the sickly green light of the glowing mushrooms. In one breath, he assessed the space before him. Too many to dart past without a fight.

Across the temple, Garin and Velhya carved through Witherborn, ever nearer to the Rootflesh.

In a voice strong enough to command armies, Velhya cried out, “Guardians! To me!”

Her words reverberated in the gloom as she slammed her fist into the stone beneath her feet. A wave pulsed from it, carrying the scent of rain after a storm and fresh-turned soil. Pebbles rattled, and the air grew thick.

The guardians rose from the stones—not beings of flesh and blood but of the elements. Whirlwinds of leaves and air. Giants of stone. Beasts of water. Columns of fire burning a path before snuffing out.

Orzen darted between rotting bodies, striking only when he needed to, rushing onward before they could close around him. The Rootflesh roared as they cut through its support. Its dark sockets met his gaze for one moment.

It couldn’t have her. Orzen wouldn’t let it.

The Witherborn chased after him toward the tree. She was close now. Her body hovered over the broken steps, limbs limp and dangling. Just a few strides and he’d reach her. He needed time. Needed space—a way to block them from her.

With a thrust of his arm, fire flickered from his fingertips, burning within his grasp—a sword of flame that wavered but held. He spun, heat swirling in a curve against the ground at the base of the steps. Muck ignited in an arc, a blue inferno blazing high and thick around them.

The sword of flames faltered in his hands, but the wall held.

In three strides, he reached her.

A black and silver torrent of magic flooded from her, swirling around her toward the wound in the tree, now pulsing rhythmically like a heartbeat. When he thrust his hand toward the bands of magic separating them, his ears popped—pressure squeezing against him until he forced himself through it with a cry, skin prickling painfully.

He grabbed her hand. Her fingers were ice cold.

“Wren!” He tugged desperately on her arm, limp and lifeless beneath his fingers. Her Spirit mark flickered with shadowed light, like it too was being corrupted.

Her face lolled toward him, eyes dark as caverns.

Wren’s lips moved, but the voice was not her own. The whisper was ancient and hungry. It stabbed through Orzen’s skull. You cannot reach her. What you see is a vessel—soon to be emptied.

“No! I know you’re still in there.”

You came far. But you are too late.

He refused to believe it.

Not when her pulse still beat beneath his fingers.

“Please, this isn’t who you are.” It was her biggest fear. Not dying. Forgetting. Becoming someone she didn’t recognize.