Page 184 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

Of course. Fool. It was his one job.

He fumbled his belt pocket open, fingers closing around the wooden squirrel. It seemed stupid pulling something so simple out while battle raged around him, but she’d trusted him with it, and he was desperate. He pressed it into her palm.

Sound faded behind as he closed her fingers around the squirrel and held on.

“Screw the Cycle. This is your choice. You told me you’d fight.” The words were so small next to a god’s prison. “This is how you fight, through memory—so fight. Remember.”

Seconds stretched on, and nothing changed.

An endless string of heartbeats that dragged into eternity. A future where she was no longer part of his life. No longer herself.

“Please, Wren.”

Branches shuddered above them. Sap from the wound slowed to a trickle. The tendrils of weaving thinned, shrinking until they disappeared completely. The tree still stood, but the wound ceased pulsing. Something had changed.

He didn’t care what it meant because her fingers suddenly flinched within his. All he could see was the darkness draining from her eyes, the color slipping back into her lips. She gasped, eyes wide with terror before they rolled and closed again.

Her body fell, and he caught her against his chest. She was so small, limp in his arms. Her head slumped against him, silver hair falling across her face. But she was breathing. He could feel it at his collar, a thin, steady rhythm.

The sounds of battle slowed, then broke off like a held breath, too quiet after the cacophony. Orzen’s pulse thundered in his ears. Velhya and Garin stood back-to-back in the middle of a tangle of monsters. Witherborn froze, weapons raised, bark-and-fungus limbs faltering mid-attack.

Then, all around the broken temple, the Witherborn sank to the ground. Dropped to their knees. Lowered weapons.

They’d done it. They’d won.

But the Rootflesh still lived. Its skull tilted toward the night sky, moonlight carving grotesque shadows across its frame. With aching slowness, it raised its elongated arms, wooden limbs creaking. Then, it looked straight at Orzen. Even from this distance, he could see the grin cracking across its face.

A chill crept up his spine. Orzen saw it now. This wasn’t over.

The Witherborn hadn’t surrendered. They were bowing.

Humming filled the air, a low vibration that rumbled through the temple. Pebbles skittered across the ground. The Witherborn murmured in answer. Some in robes crept closer to the Rootflesh, swaying in time to the rhythm.

Orzen pulled Wren closer, desperate to protect her—as if he could stop a god with his own body as a shield.

Sickly green light erupted in rays from the Rootflesh’s body, solidifying into a glowing, nightmarish form that hovered around him—an avatar of godly power.

A deep laugh filled the air. She chose this.

The voice rasped like bones clattering in a grave. It echoed from every direction at once.

She lives, but you have lost.

Chapter 48

The Hollow Heart

There was no light. No sound. Only pain. Agonizing. Unending. Pressure so deep she would have done anything to make it stop. Her Spirit siphoned from her, consumed by a force she had no hope of repelling. But she couldn’t give in.

She didn’t know why—only that she had to keep fighting.

Then her consciousness was tugged sideways, swirling like water from an unstopped drain. The darkness vanished, and she appeared in a place she’d never seen before. She wore a long tunic and trousers, like she usually did when she delivered for Ma.

But this wasn’t Thistlehold.

Wherever she was, it was wrong in quiet ways she couldn’t explain. A meadow of wildflowers stretched around her, fields too full to count, but they held no scent. The blossoms themselves seemed to shift when she blinked—first alive, then decayed, then alive again. Birds hovered in the sky without moving forward, as though the air itself refused to let them pass.

There was no pulse beneath her skin. Her hoof beats made no sound. The horizon never drew closer, no matter how far she walked. Even the light was fractured. Half of the sky burned red and purple, caught forever in twilight. The other half glowed orange and gold, poised on the edge of dawn.