ZEIDAN
The bond screams in a warning.
It detonates through my chest like a blade driven straight between my ribs, sharp and absolute, and I am already moving before thought catches up. The suppression runes burn as my magic surges against them, shattering restraint, flooding my veins with cold, violent clarity.
Amelia.
The ritual circle flashes in my mind, her bare feet on living earth, her hands raised, her magic open and exposed. Too open.
Something is wrong.
I break from the shadows without hesitation. The crowd parts too slowly. Lanterns sway. Voices rise in confusion as I shove past bodies, my hood thrown back, my presence no longer hidden. Someone shouts. Someone else gasps my name like a curse.
I don’t care.
The bond pulls me like a hooked chain, dragging me forward just as the air splits with motion.
Steel flashes. A blade catches the ritual firelight, thin, elegant, moving with lethal precision straight toward Amelia’s unguarded side.
Too fast and too close. She turns at the last second, shock widening her eyes as the assassin surges from the crowd, masked and silent, arm already extended. The ritual circle flares wildly, her magic lashing outward in reflex, uncontrolled, destabilized by fear and interruption.
I roar. Magic explodes from me in a violent wave, cracking stone, extinguishing lanterns, knocking bodies backward as I cross the remaining distance in a blur of shadow and force. The ground splits beneath my boots.
I reach her as the blade descends. My hand snaps out, catching the assassin’s wrist mid-strike. Bone crunches. The sound is wet and final.
I feel the break travel up their arm as I twist, rage lending my strength something inhuman. The blade skitters free, clattering across stone. The attacker screams, once, before I drive my knee into their chest and send them flying into the outer edge of the circle.
They don’t rise. I don’t let them. The shift tears through me without permission.
Claws erupt from my hands, half-formed, shadow and bone and blood magic flaring as instinct overwhelms restraint. My vision sharpens, pupils blown wide as the predator takes hold. Fangs descend, breath steaming in the cold night air. Gasps erupt around us.
“Vrakken!” someone shrieks.
I turn slowly, positioning myself in front of Amelia without thought, without hesitation. My body shields hers completely, my magic flaring outward in a brutal, warning pulse that rattles teeth and drives the nearest onlookers back a full step.
Mine.
The word is not conscious. It is truth.
Amelia is breathing hard behind me. I feel her shock, pain, fury, magic bucking wildly against its channels. Her power is no longer flowing cleanly into the Wildspont. It’s spiking, unstable, reacting violently to the broken ritual.
Blood magic responds…Ours.
It surges between us, dark and incandescent, wrapping her wild light in shadow, stabilizing it by force if not finesse. The ground beneath us hums, then answers. Roots tighten. The Wildspont pulses stronger.
The land recognizes us. The crowd does too.
“Enough!” I snarl, voice layered with something older than language. “Stand down.”
Some flinch. Others stare in horrified awe.
Elder Cael steps forward, face pale. “You were forbidden from?—”
“Someone tried to kill her,” I cut in coldly. “You can argue protocol later.”
My gaze sweeps the assembled Purnas and elders, daring anyone to challenge me. “Your ritual was infiltrated. Your wards failed. And you are wasting breath on me.”
Murmurs ripple. Fear shifts direction.
