hapter 206.
Chapter 206
I didn’t ask where she got it.
I didn’t want to know..
“Ready?” she asked, voice flat.
I looked past her to the trees–dense, black, and wrong. The shadows between the trunks were too deep. The forest ahead breathed in long, silent rhythms.
I swallowed hard. “Not really.”
She stepped into the trees without another word.
And I followed her into the dark.
***
Crossing the threshold into the Blightwood was like stepping through a membrane. The air thickened. Cold snapped tighter around my ribs. The sunlight behind us dimmed, swallowed whole by the canopy of twisted branches above.
The scent changed. Gone was the crisp pine and wildflowers of the packlands. Here, the air smelled of charcoal, mildew, something sweet and sickly–blood, maybe. Or rot.
The deeper we walked, the less the forest felt like a place and more like a creature. The trees groaned softly as we passed, like they were shifting. Watching. Breathing.
I caught flashes of movement in the corners of my eyes, but when I turned, nothing was there. Just shadow and silence.
“This is a bad idea,” I muttered.
“We’re past ideas,” Cassandra replied. “We’re into consequences now.”
And then she appeared.
The priestess didn’t walk into view. She was just… there. One blink and the path ahead was empty. The next, she stood before us.
Tall. Thin. Shrouded in robes the color of ash and bone, eaten at the edges like moths had feasted on them. Her face was veiled in silk so pale it nearly disappeared into the mist.
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak at first.
Then, in a voice like wet leaves and rusted chains:
“Cassandra of the Stolen Glory. Logan of the Forsaken Vow. You seek what should not be undone.”
I froze.
Cassandra didn’t. She stepped forward, lifting her chin. “We’re ready.”
I swallowed heavily and shifted on my feet.
This wasn’t about a spell or a charm. This was about Elena and Derek. About the bond that still existed between them, thin and frayed but unbroken. Even though she’d rejected him, even though so much had happened since, it still lingered beneath the surface.
1/2
Chapter 200
Just like mine did.
Maggie.
→ +25 BONUS
I could still feel it sometimes. That pull in my chest. The ache of something meant to be that I’d pushed away.
I could still feel her in my arms—the heat of her skin, the leat of her gaze–the anger boiling under the surface. Maybe I should be severing my own bond, I thought, rather than trying to sever someone else’s.
The priestess turned her veiled head toward me. I felt her ze like frost on my bones.
“He’s not,” she said.
“It’s fine. Let’s just do it,” I said.
“One who hesitates has not yet counted the cost.” Goddess, could feel her presence all around me like cold seeping through clothes.
My jaw tensed. “I’ve counted it. I just don’t like the math.”
She held out a hand, palm up. Her fingers were long, too long, bones bent in ways they shouldn’t be.
“Leave the offering. Then go. The bond will break when the moon shifts. But if the bond is blessed–it will return. With teeth.”
Cassandra didn’t hesitate. She handed over the box.
The priestess took it, folding it into her robes. The fabric didn’t move the way it should. It swallowed the box like it was a throat.
The trees creaked.
The shadows shifted.
And something cold and ancient moved under the forest floor.
I turned first. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
The forest was silent around us as we walked, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what dark thing we’d just set in motion. The priestess had said “if the bond is blessed, it will return–with teeth.” And I couldn’t help but wonder who would those teeth bite? And how hard?
“If this backfires, Cassandra…”
She cut me off with a smirk. “Then we find a way to burn what’s left.”
We walked back in silence. The forest didn’t want us to leave. I could feel it, dragging at our heels, brushing our shoulders with unseen fingers.
At the edge of the trees, I looked back one last time.
The priestess was gone.
But the Blightwood was awake now.
And we had fed it.
