Chapter 5 Through Thorn and Silence

POV: Cael

The forest knows they are coming.

It’s subtle—easy to miss if you don’t live on its edges—but I feel it in the way the air tightens, in how the birds refuse to settle, in the faint drag against my wards like fingers testing a locked door. Elven hunters don’t simply track; they converse with the land. They coax it into betraying you.

Which means subtlety is already gone.

I move fast, but not recklessly, angling us downhill and east, away from the obvious game trails. Elara keeps pace beside me despite her weakened state, breath controlled, steps precise. Muscle memory. Training. Even stripped of her magic, she moves like someone raised to survive the wild.

That alone tells me how dangerous her people are.

“Left,” I murmur without looking at her, shifting toward a narrow ravine where the undergrowth thickens into thorn and bramble.

She follows without question.

Good.

The charm I gave her hums faintly against my senses, dampening the worst of the shadow’s echo, but it isn’t enough to erase her presence entirely. The curse is too alive for that. It presses outward, curious, brushing against my wards like a cat testing a new home.

I don’t tell her that.

We descend into the ravine, the walls closing in, stone slick with moss and half-frozen runoff. The path is treacherous—roots like snares, shale eager to slip—but it’s loud in all the wrong ways. Elven hunters hate noise. They prefer clean pursuit, certainty.

I stop abruptly and pull Elara against the rock wall just as a whisper of movement passes above us.

She stiffens, hand clutching my sleeve.

Boots—soft-soled, deliberate—cross the ravine’s edge overhead. I hold my breath, flattening my magic inward, forcing it down into the marrow of my bones. The wards dim to near-nothing.

Beside me, Elara trembles—not with fear, but restraint. The shadow inside her strains like a hound held too tightly to leash.

Be still, I think fiercely, though I don’t know if she can feel it through the bond.

The hunters pass.

I don’t move until the sound fades completely, then another count of ten, then ten more. Only when the forest exhales do I allow myself to shift.

Elara’s breath leaves her in a shaky rush.

“They’re splitting up,” she whispers. “Soryn will flank.”

I glance at her sharply. “You’re sure?”

She nods, jaw tight. “He always does. One team pressures. One predicts.”

Predicts where prey will choose to go.

Smart bastard.

“We change the rules,” I say.

I guide her deeper into the ravine until the walls narrow into a cleft barely wide enough for one person. Ice glazes the stone. I grip her waist without thinking and help her down a sharp drop, my hands firm, controlled.

Her body reacts anyway.

I feel it—an involuntary hitch of breath, the way the bond warms at the contact. Her magic stirs faintly, not shadow this time but something older, greener, aching to respond.

I release her immediately.

She steadies herself, eyes dark. “You didn’t have to—”

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I did.”

I step past her and draw a knife from my boot, slicing my thumb. Blood beads bright. I press it to the stone, murmuring a short, vicious incantation under my breath.

The rock drinks.

A false trail blossoms outward—my magic twisted to mimic Elara’s signature, shadow and all, streaking away toward the west like a fleeing ghost. It will fool them for minutes. Maybe more, if they’re careless.

Elara watches, awe and unease mixing in her gaze. “That kind of spell—”

“—gets you burned by the Guild,” I finish. “Yes.”

The shadow inside her hums, pleased.

I hate that it agrees with me.

We move again, this time upward, climbing into denser terrain where tree roots weave together like cages. The climb is slow. Elara’s strength flags, and I can feel it through the bond—the drag, the ache, the way the curse feeds harder when she’s exhausted.

I slow, matching her pace.

After a while, she speaks, voice quiet. “You could still leave.”

I don’t answer immediately. The idea is almost laughable now.

“I won’t,” I say finally.

“Why?” There’s no accusation in it. Just need.

I glance back at her, at the determination etched into her expression, at the faint silver threading her irises when the shadow watches the world through her eyes.

“Because they won’t stop,” I say. “And because whatever that thing inside you is, it’s not evil. It’s constrained. Imprisoned. And someone put it there on purpose.”

She falters. I catch her elbow, steadying her.

“You think the curse was deliberate,” she says.

“I know it was,” I reply. “Nightroot magic doesn’t happen by accident.”

Her breath shudders. “My people would never—”

“They already did,” I say, not unkindly. “They just convinced themselves it was holy.”

We crest the rise and drop into a narrow stand of black pines, their branches heavy with frost. The air here is thinner, colder. Sound carries poorly. Good terrain for disappearing.

I crouch, tracing a rapid sigil into the snow. “We rest for five minutes. No more.”

Elara sinks down onto a fallen log, shoulders slumping the moment she stops moving. The shadow stirs again, restless.

I kneel in front of her, lowering my voice. “Look at me.”

She does.

Her pupils are blown wide, breath shallow. The mark at her throat pulses faintly, the seam darker than it was this morning.

“You’re burning through suppression,” I say. “I can reinforce—but not without contact.”

Her gaze flicks to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “And the hunters?”

“Far enough. For now.”

She hesitates only a second. Then she nods.

I place my hands on her knees first—anchoring, grounding. The bond hums, alive. Slowly, deliberately, I slide one hand up to her wrist, thumb pressing into her pulse point.

Her heart races under my skin.

I murmur the spell quietly this time, keeping it contained. Shadow responds instantly, coiling inward instead of outward, drawn toward the stabilizing current of my magic.

Elara gasps softly.

“Stay with me,” I say again, my voice lower than it has any right to be.

Her lips part. “I am.”

The words send a jolt through me that has nothing to do with magic.

The suppression settles, the pressure easing. Color returns to her face. When I pull my hand back, slowly, reluctantly, the space between us feels too empty.

We freeze at the same moment.

A sound—faint, deliberate—drifts through the trees.

Steel whispering against bark.

Elara’s eyes meet mine, fear and fury blazing together.

“They’ve found the false trail,” she whispers.

I rise smoothly, drawing my blade.

“Then,” I say, positioning myself slightly in front of her, “it’s time they realize they’re hunting something that hunts back.”

The forest holds its breath.

And so do I.