Page 86 of Unveiled

A broken laugh, thin and pained, slipped from Adrian’s lips. “You’re not very gentle, mon ami.”

“Not trying to be.”

The rend widened again, belching another surge of frost and wind that nearly tore Adrian out of his grip. Connor’s boots slid in the dirt, his heels digging desperately for purchase. The light lashed across his vision. Adrian cried out in pain as the mark flared white-hot.

And the Mouthpiece leaned forward, its shapeless face cracking open into something that might once have been a mouth.

The Veil claims its own.

Connor roared, lunging forward, using his body as a shield. “He is not yours.”

He carries our seal.

Something like a hand formed out of the Mouthpiece’s swirling smoke. Long, skeletal fingers that stretched toward Adrian. Connor shoved Adrian behind him with a snarl, swinging his rifle like a staff. The butt cracked across the smoky limb. The limb dissolved, then re-formed.

Adrian froze. The mark’s glow spilled from beneath his shirt in harsh pulses now, like something alive.

Connor grabbed his arm. “Adrian, talk to me.”

Adrian didn’t blink. “I can feel them. They’re reaching through me. I think…Connor I think I’m the anchor.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Connor.”

“No.” He jerked Adrian closer, his fingers gripping his shoulders. “You aren’t their door. Or their path.”

“Then why mark me?” Adrian snarled, his gaze wild.

The question stabbed Connor through the chest. Because he didn’t know.

A thunderclap shook the ground, and the crack across the clearing split wider, lightning erupting from the earth.

Max shouted from the tree line, “Connor. Get him out of there!”

Fraser echoed him. “The rend’s unstable. Move.”

Connor didn’t move. Neither did Adrian. Because the rend was changing.

The spiralling colours began to synchronise: blue, violet, and green. Then they collapsed inward like an eye focusing. The light froze, then shot out in a wave of blinding brilliance.

Connor threw his body over Adrian as the blast slammed into him. The force lifted him off his feet, hurling him across the ground. Adrian was ripped from his arms. Connor hit the earth hard, pain exploding down his spine, the air knocked from his lungs.

The world spun. He tasted blood.

“Connor.” Adrian’s voice.

Connor forced his eyes open, his vision swimming, and pushed himself up, his muscles screaming. Adrian knelt several paces away, clutching his head in both hands, his eyes wide and glassy with pain. The mark blazed like a star about to collapse.

Connor staggered toward him. But the rend pulsed, and Adrian howled. The sound cut through Connor like a knife.

Adrian lifted his face, his eyes glowing pure white, a corona of wild light radiating around his pupils. Connor stopped, horrified.

Adrian’s voice came out as two voices layered together: his own and something older, something vast, something cold enough to freeze marrow.

The path is open.

Connor’s blood ran cold.