Chapter 4 The Darkness Follows Her

Hectevia

Kilan reaches for Nora the moment I close the bathroom door.

I feel the shadows stir behind me, sliding away from the entrance before curling around something warm. Nora should not be able to move them. Kilan should hold wherever I place it until I call it back.

Instead, it follows her hand.

Zev gave me one minute, and I have already used most of it.

Leaving Nora alone is a mistake. If she tries to escape, the creatures beneath the house will catch her scent before she reaches the trees. If they do not find her, the Council will.

Humans are executed on sight. Anyone caught hiding one shares their punishment, and the Council could use my treason to destroy my Tetrad before we issue our challenge.

I force myself downstairs.

Zev sits at the head of the dining table with a map beside his plate. The dark markings along his throat have settled beneath his skin.

Kai sits opposite him, rolling a knife across his knuckles. He has deep-bronze skin and black hair cut close around the sides. His dark-brown eyes follow me to my chair.

Ren places a bowl on the table. His broad shoulders strain against his shirt as his hazel eyes move over my face.

“You look troubled,” Ren says.

“Just hungry.”

Zev folds his hands over the map. “The Council moved our southern assessment forward. We train at dawn, then report directly to the boundary.”

“Another breach?” I ask.

“Three scouts crossed the boundary this morning,” Kai says.

“They withdrew before our patrol reached them,” Zev adds. “They are testing the Council’s reach.”

“They are testing us,” Kai corrects. “Everyone knows we are preparing to challenge.”

Ren tears a piece of bread in half. “They also know the Council will happily let someone weaken us first.”

Zev’s father has spent years sending us wherever the fighting is thickest. Every assignment is dressed as honour, while each one carries another chance that one of us will fail to return.

Our Tetrad has risen to stand directly beneath the ruling Council. Under Nether tradition, that gives us the right to challenge them for power, and the bond between us has grown strong enough to make them afraid.

Zev wants to take control from the father who raised him beneath it. Kai wants the Council’s hand removed from his throat. Ren wants to stop repairing the bodies they keep throwing into pointless fights.

I want all three of them alive when we take their seats.

Something pulls against my Kilan upstairs, and my gaze snaps towards the ceiling.

“Hectevia,” Zev says.

I look back at him.

“The western approach. What do you think?”

I glance at the map. I have missed everything said before the question, an error I never make.

“Too exposed. If the scouts wanted to withdraw unseen, they would have used the ravine. They crossed open ground because they wanted to be noticed.”

Kai leans forward. “A distraction.”

“Or an invitation,” Zev says. His charcoal-grey eyes remain on me. “What happened upstairs?”

“My Kilan reacted to the outer wards.”

“We know that,” Kai says. “We want to know why.”

“Nothing entered the house.”

Kai’s eyes narrow. “That wasn’t the question.”

Ren looks between us. “Are you injured?”

“No.”

I need the summoning-circle remains and the oldest records inside the Council library. If answers exist, they will be there.

Taking a human into the Council building could have us both executed, but leaving her here gives her time to climb out the window or allows one of the others to find her.

“I won’t be at training tomorrow,” I say.

Kai’s knife stops again, and Zev sits back. “Why?”

“My mother sent for me.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

Ren’s brow draws together. “Is she ill?”

“She did not say.”

My mother has not sent for me. I have not willingly visited her in months. It is the only excuse I have to miss training.

Zev’s eyes narrow. “You hate visiting your mother.”

“I can dislike it and still go.”

The Kilan upstairs shifts, then becomes completely still, and cold runs through my chest.

I take two pieces of bread and wrap them in a napkin beneath the table.

Ren watches my hands, and without speaking, he adds slices of roasted meat and a piece of dark-red fruit.

Kai looks between us. “Are you planning to flee before breakfast?”

“I’m done for tonight.”

“We are still discussing tomorrow,” Zev says.

“You know my opinion. We train until the Council gives us another excuse to bleed, then reach the boundary and discover the scouts are gone.”

I stand with the food, and Zev watches me move towards the stairs. “Whatever you strengthened your wards against, make sure it stays outside this house.”

I tighten my hand around the napkin. “Of course.”

When I reach my room again, I shut the door and pull Kilan away from the bathroom entrance.

“Nora?”

She is asleep on the floor with her back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, and her head tipped back. The empty water glass sits beside her, and she looks oddly comfortable pressed against the cold stone.

I drop the food on the vanity and kneel.

“Nora.”

I press two fingers to her throat and find a steady pulse. Her breath brushes across my wrist, warm and slow, carrying the faint scent of alcohol.

My shoulders lower as I look her over.

Her shoes are worn through at the edges. Angry blisters cover her heels, and a red mark cuts across her neck where the strap of her bag caught her during the fall. Bruises have begun to darken beneath her skin.

I slide one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back. Heat drives through my palms as Kilan rises from the floor and winds around us. Nora releases a quiet sound, turns her face into my neck and settles against me.

I carry her to the bed, lower her onto the sheets and pull the blanket over her. Her hand slips from my shoulder, dragging across the marks on my wrist before falling beside her face.

I should inspect the circle and move away from her.

Instead, I brush the hair from her cheek and wait until her breathing settles.

The remains of the summoning spell wait beneath Kilan near the foot of the bed. When I crouch beside them, I find most of the markings smeared beneath Zev’s boots. Blackened powder has been ground into the stone, leaving fragments of the original design.

I scrape the remains into a vial from the vanity. Only one symbol remains intact. Three curved lines surround a narrow opening, with an archaic mark cut through the centre.

Tomorrow, I will claim I am visiting my mother, conceal Nora beneath Kilan and take her into the one building where discovery will kill us both.

The oldest summoning texts respond to the magic they record. If I find the correct one, it may need Nora close enough to wake it.

Then I can learn who brought her here and find a way to send her home.