Mireya settled on the cold cavern floor with shallow breaths and the once searing pain in her chest finally dulling into a low throb. The blade had not come. Despite the chant. Despite the burn. Despite the certainty in her bones.
Daelviaha knelt at her side, quiet. She didn't need words—her concern hung in the air like mist. The chant had awakened something, but whatever power lay dormant below the stone had not been fully roused. Not with the mark concealed. Not yet.
"We should go," Daelviaha murmured, her voice echoing too loudly in the vast dark. "You're not well."
"I'm fine," Mireya lied. Her fingers pressed into the damp ground, grounding herself in something solid. "It was close. I could feel it."
Daelviaha didn't argue. Instead, she offered a hand, and Mireya took it. They left the chamber in silence, the memory of the failed summoning clinging to them both like wet ash.
Back in the open air, the moonlight did little to warm them. Mireya collapsed to her knees by the riverside, letting the water run through her fingers. She stared at her reflection—at the pale face and haunted eyes staring back.
Her thoughts twisted restlessly. If the blade needed the mark… what would it take to uncover it? She had lived so long thinking it was just a scar. But the magic Daelviaha had used to hide it—what if that magic was the very thing holding the blade back?
Daelviaha sat beside her, wrapping her cloak around them both. "You don't have to face this alone."
Mireya didn't answer. She wasn't sure what scared her more—the truth about the mark, or the price she might have to pay to bring it back.
*********
[Uhrin's Point of View]
Far from the river's edge, where no light reached and silence swallowed sound, Uhrin moved like smoke between trees—unseen, unfelt, but not forgotten.
The shadows clung to her skin, their whispers trailing behind her like a hymn. She had become something else now—neither living nor truly dead. But her hunger remained. Her purpose had sharpened into something singular.
The Blade of Curse's End, a shadow render.
She had spent a lifetime chasing fragments of it. Maps that led nowhere, songs that ended too soon, symbols etched in ruins no one dared decipher. For years, while still a witch, she had hunted for the blade's resting place. She'd believed in it with the kind of desperation that made others call her mad.
But she had never found it.
Not even close.
Until now.
Uhrin paused, her eyes narrowing as the shadows around her twitched—subtle, reverent. A tremor had passed through the old magic like a ripple through still water. Something ancient had stirred. Something powerful.
She felt it.
The blade had been awakened.
She clenched her fists. Mireya. It could only be her.
It made sense, in a way Uhrin loathed to admit. The girl had always been a mystery wrapped in gentle obedience. Quiet, watchful. Unremarkable on the surface—but Uhrin had seen more. Had known more. There had always been a reason Daelviaha kept her so close. Why the coven whispered but never questioned.
And now she's found it, Uhrin thought darkly. She's holding what I died searching for.
A cold smile curved across her lips.
Then Mireya would give it to her.