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It stilled, shifted, and stepped into the moonlight.
Black leather armor. A nose broken too many times. Long strands of dark hair over its brow. His own brow. His own face, peering toward the Glade. Toward the cottages. Where Wren and the others slept. Orzen’s breath froze in his lungs.
A crude copy—close enough to fool most.
Silas.
Chapter 46
Beneath The Binding Bough
Sleep hadn’t come easily for Wren. Her thoughts wouldn’t settle. Whenever they did, they drifted back to things she didn’t have time to unravel—like the kiss Orzen had left her with. The way he’d smelled like leather and cedar. How his lips against her cheek had somehow felt soft and solid at the same time.
She’d watched him walk away, emotions jumbled in a knot she couldn’t untangle. So she’d fruitlessly gone to bed in hopes of sleeping before moonrise.
Too many decisions flitted through her mind, circling like the birds Orzen had brought her to that morning. When she finally fell asleep, images flashed through her dreams:
Silas’s toothy grin framed in green light as she collapsed.
Voryx’s whispers, insisting she’d be the one to release him.
Marrowen’s smile as she fixed Wren’s hair before Hearthroot.
Orzen rushing away after kissing her.
His body burning with blue fire, but this time, it consumed him.
Pain pricked in her forearm, and she startled awake. Her mark glowed with silver light beneath her blanket. The whisperstone slipped from her fingers. She’d fallen asleep with it in her hand. It landed beside her on the bed, pulsing in time with her mark, an insistent rhythm that made her heart skip.
She rubbed the grit from her eyes and reached for it.
The stone was smooth and hot beneath her fingers. It responded instantly. Emotions not her own flooded in. Concern mixed with care, all threaded through with a calm reassurance. Wren, I found something. I need you to meet me here. Use the stone.
She sat up immediately and sent a message back. Orzen? Where are you? Seconds passed, and nothing else came.
She swallowed and looked around the quiet cottage. Something about the silence sat wrong in her gut, and she propped herself up in bed, waiting. When no other message arrived, she pulled back her blankets and stood. Perhaps he found something while on patrol. He wouldn’t have asked her to come if he didn’t think it was important.
Moonlight flooded through the window. Not quite moonrise.
She should wake the others. But if Orzen truly needed her, every moment spent rousing the Glade would delay her reaching him. And if it was nothing, she’d look foolish panicking everyone over it on a night already fraught with sharp tension.
There hadn’t been any fear through the stone. No pain. Only urgency. And Orzen had said he needed her specifically. If he thought it needed the Gladeans, surely, he would’ve said so. She’d slip out quickly, find him, and they’d come back to join the others once she’d seen whatever he needed her to.
She shifted a cloak over her shoulders, flipped the hood over her head, and ducked out. The Glade was quiet. A slick sense of guilt coiled around her as she slipped through the shadows. The guards paced atop the rope bridges with the same restless energy that raced through her veins, but they didn’t stop her.
Silver light from the whisperstone curled ahead into the darkened trees. The light turned and slipped through a break ahead, and she followed, wondering how far out he’d gone.
The clouded moonlight was not bright enough to see clearly, and her hooves caught a root. She stumbled, the whisperstone flying from her grasp into the underbrush. Frantically, she dove after it.
Her hands pawed through muck. Her fingers finally found the smooth stone, slick with decayed filth. She clutched it to her chest and stood. Ahead, the sky glowed with more than moonlight. An eerie green aura hung in the air. Stumbling forward, her mark began to pulse—a painful heartbeat beneath her skin. The Whisperstone glowed insistently. She had to be close.
Columns broken by time reflected the pale light. Crumbling walls, more rot than stone. Her heart stuttered when she saw it. Her mark hummed in recognition of the ancient temple. Carved symbols worn smooth—swallowed by fungus and age.
With shaking hands, she clawed the moss from the surface of a pillar, revealing the carving beneath it—a crescent filled with flowers. Nearby, another symbol: a loom with threads woven into stars. Further on, a full moon split into two halves, one side darkened, the other bright. Not only Elaren. The old gods—Orulon and Nalduun.
None for Voryx. None that she could see.
This must be the Heartwood, and the whisperstone led right to it. She took a step back and clutched it in her palm, slick with sweat and grime. You’re at the Heart? I thought we were waiting.
