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Her eyes lifted to Wren’s, golden and unyielding. “There are still those who honor endings without fearing them, though they no longer call themselves Ashweavers. The legacy of the Warden follows them, too.”

Velhya’s gaze drifted beyond the sanctuary. “Far from the Virewood, there are still those who tend the final chapters of life. They keep vigil beside the dying, bury the dead so the soil can reclaim them. They remember what the Dawnblades have forgotten—that endings are sacred, too.”

The Warden. The sacrifice. This was what Hennah’s prophecy required. A surrendered life for the good of the Cycle, to ensure Voryx stayed bound until another way could be found.

Wren’s hands shook in her lap. She’d avoided the prophecy since it was spoken, but now it was inescapable. If Velhya couldn’t give her clarity, Wren feared no one could.

“There is one more thing,” Wren whispered.

With trembling fingers, she pulled the scrap of parchment from her belt. She’d kept it tucked away since Hennah scrawled the words, as if hiding it could keep the prophecy from coming true. She unfolded it and read Hennah’s delicate script:

Shadow calls, seeking the key.

The bloom fades beneath the darkness.

She who bears the moon walks the path of sacrifice.

Mend the broken rhythm, or see the world unmade.

Wren’s voice faded into the hush of the sanctuary. Cap gave a tiny, startled chirp and pressed himself trembling against her leg. Sprig hid against Velhya’s arm, swaying like a leaf in a sudden storm. Velhya’s stillness was more subtle than their fear—a knife balanced on its edge. Slowly, she reached for the parchment. Her fingers hovered above the words, as though the ink itself might harm her.

Finally, Velhya spoke. “This is from a Spirit Weaver, yes?” Wren nodded, but before she could say more, Velhya continued, “These lines…they were spoken once before. The Arboradin have carried it through the generations, from one Cycle Keeper to the next, since before the Binding.”

Wren’s breath hitched. “It’s old? Then maybe I won’t have to…” Her hands clenched in her lap. “I might not die for this?”

Velhya reached for her hands, steadying them gently.

“Child, sacrifice does not always mean death, but it always demands a cost.”

The mushrooms around them dimmed, hummed, and brightened again as if the sanctuary itself was trying to contain something too heavy for its roots.

“I must meditate on this.” Velhya’s voice held a tremor, so thin it barely registered, but real enough that it set Wren’s heartbeat thrumming in her chest. “Rest tonight. And know that we share the words of this prophecy together. Perhaps others will help carry them as well, if you allow them to.”

Chapter 41

Scones and Shadows

Orzen stood on the shared porch watching Wren and Leora disappear down the path. He’d wanted space to think—needed it—but now that he had it, the urge to chase after them was almost too much to take. Calen and Jessa’s voices drifted out of the cottage behind him, filling the air with a quiet joy he wasn’t able to reach.

Within the Hollow, the forge had burned around him again. The same way it had in his nightmares for cycles. The pit in his stomach had grown since he’d escaped the Hollow. No, not escaped. Wren had pulled him out.

The memory of what happened was jumbled—half shadowed by the vision of his father’s forge—but he knew she’d come for him, grabbing his arm. She’d cried out in pain. Burned by his weaving, and he hadn’t even noticed. He slung his scabbard off his shoulder and sat heavily on the porch. One way or another, he managed to cause complications. To hurt people even when he didn’t mean to.

In the past he’d managed by getting lost in whatever pleasure was loud enough to take his mind off the violence he’d caused. None of that felt like relief anymore. Not when he could picture Wren looking at him with that stubborn hope, like she simply wanted him to choose better for himself.

He was surprised to find that he wanted to talk to her about it at all. His hand tightened on the vine-woven handrail. Not now. Wren deserved space too. He wasn’t sure he was ready for her to know the truth about what he’d done—who he’d really been before this. She’d accepted the pieces she’d seen, but he knew all too well that some truths were impossible to forgive.

Everything about the Glade was too much—too quiet, too joyful, too bright. It should’ve been comforting; it only heightened the tension between his shoulders. He couldn’t sit here. Better to carry sullen thoughts on the move than let them settle and grow teeth. He left the sword leaning against the doorframe. If he needed it here, they were already lost.

He didn’t have a plan, not really, but his boots carried him down the row of cottages toward the small lake beyond the cabins.

At the end of the row, a door burst open—

Tommick came flying out. Balanced on his shoulder, somehow, was a mossy possum-like creature nearly as big as Tommick himself. It had bright pebble eyes and soft ears shaped like flower petals.

“Orzen!” Tommick shouted, bounding over. The creature swayed, but clung on with its furless tail curled around the boy’s arm. “Look at this thing! It’s called a mossum, and Mira said she thinks it was waiting for me, so I named him Grub. ‘Cuz that’s what he eats. Worms!”

Tommick cackled and scratched Grub’s head. The mossum chirruped happily. Its mouth contained rows of sharp teeth. Orzen supposed it was endearing in the way some things were—dangerous-looking until they decided you were theirs.