Page 84 of Unveiled

You are summoned.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Connor

Connor stepped in front of Adrian, his muscles coiled, every instinct screaming. “Show yourselves,” he snarled.

The shadows stirred. Not the twitching Nightwrought from before. Something else. Something larger.

A silhouette began to form at the far end of the clearing. Tall as the trees, its edges dripping like ink underwater. Its body flickered between shapes: a robed figure, a gaunt beast, a thing made of smoke and teeth.

Adrian went rigid. “That’s not a Nightwrought,” he whispered. “It’s a Mouthpiece.” He looked at Connor with horror.

Connor’s heart hammered. “What does that thing do?”

“They speak through it,” Adrian said. “Because they can’t cross here. Not yet.”

The figure advanced, soundless, gliding inches above the ground. The Mouthpiece paused only a few feet away. When it spoke, its voice came from everywhere at once.

Return the Marked.

Adrian stepped forward, snarling. “No.”

Return what is ours.

“I am not yours.”

You carry our seal.

“I don’t care,” Adrian said between gritted teeth. “Nobody owns me. You don’t belong here.”

The Mouthpiece tilted its head.

One Marked. One Bound. One must be claimed.

Connor felt the words like claws dragging down the inside of his skull. “You think I’ll let you take him?” Connor growled. “You think I’ll hand him over like he’s a damned ledger to balance?”

Balance demands sacrifice.

“Balance can fuck off,” Adrian said defiantly.

The Mouthpiece didn’t react. Instead, a strange static sound echoed in the clearing. Adrian fell to his knees. His eyes glowed white. Brilliant and burning. “Connor. They’re pulling.”

Connor’s blood iced. “Pulling what?”

“Me.”

And then the rend cracked open.

The ground split behind the Mouthpiece with a deafening roar, light pouring out in a blinding column. The clearing shook. Trees groaned. Frost exploded from the soil like shards of bone.

Adrian screamed. Connor caught him as he buckled, lifting him into his arms as the mark flared bright enough to scorch through fabric.

The Mouthpiece stretched toward them.

Return the Marked One.

Connor roared back, the sound more wolf than man. “No. You’ll take him over my dead body.”