The air in the family's cavern suite was thick with the cloying smell of medicinal herbs and a silence that hummed like a plucked wire. Maria lay propped on a mountain of pillows, her skin pale and clammy. The physical wound from the manticore was a fading scar, thanks to Mills's frantic healing. The other wound, the one inside, festered.
It had started as dreams. Vivid, tactile, borrowed dreams.
She was Emily, running through a dark wood, the hex a cold stone in her chest, her hand pressed to her belly where a tiny, fading light flickered. "George, I can't feel it kick anymore…"
She was George, holding his wife as she trembled, staring at his own hands as the veins beneath the skin turned black, whispering promises to a child he knew he'd never meet. "We name her Hope. Whatever happens, we name her Hope."
The memories weren't narratives. They were sensory flashes—the taste of Emily's fear, the specific, woody smell of the cabin they'd hid in, the crushing weight of George's despair. They came uninvited, a psychic bleed from the past, leaving Maria gasping awake, her cheeks wet with someone else's tears.
"It's the bond, isn't it?" Jonas murmured, holding a cool cloth to her forehead. His own burns were bandaged, his movements stiff. "What Alistair did… it didn't just tie the kids together. It tied you to the past. To them."
Maria gripped his wrist, her eyes wide and haunted. "It's a price, Jonas. For the power. For being the vessel. I'm not just carrying our children. I'm carrying their ghosts."
---
Their private torment was brutally interrupted by a summons to the King's Table. It was not a request. It was a command performance.
The Royal Refectory was a cavernous hall carved to look like a forest of stone pillars, lit by floating globes of captured sunlight. King Bertram sat at its head, a figure of restored composure, though the shadows under his eyes were new. Flanking him were stern-faced dignitaries from the Court of the Silver Lakes—potential allies, here to assess the citadel's strength after the "unfortunate disturbance."
Jonas and Maria were seated as honored guests, a transparent fiction. The twins were placed conspicuously near the king, living trophies. Prince David sat to his father's right, his gaze a possessive brand on Kaitlyn, who stared rigidly at her plate. Erik's eyes were in constant, subtle motion, mapping exits, counting guards, reading the tension in the room like a chemist reading a formula. Arthur was absent. A place had been set, then removed.
The Chamberlain, Rhys, stood to deliver the evening's reports, his voice a dry monotone meant to convey seamless control.
"The perimeter is secure. Repairs to the Grand Atrium proceed ahead of schedule. The search for the rogue ward, Morgan, continues with due diligence."
He paused, producing a small, rolled parchment sealed with a smudge of wax that looked like dried blood. "The latest report from the search party, Your Majesty."
Bertram gave a magnanimous nod. "Read it."
Rhys broke the seal. His eyes scanned the lines. For the first time anyone could remember, a flicker of something—discomfort, alarm—crossed his impassive face. He cleared his throat.
"It… appears to be a personal communique, Sire. Addressed to you."
"Read.It." The king's voice held a warning.
Rhys complied, his voice losing its polish, becoming merely a vessel for the corrosive words on the page.
"To the Thief on the Black Mountain,
You promised me a crown if I bled for you. You promised me a throne if I broke myself on your anvil and became the sharpest blade in your arsenal. I believed you. I carved out my own heart and offered it to you on that anvil. For her.
And now you have new toys. A shinier set. A 'Dyad.' So the ward who gave you everything is what? Dull steel? A spent arrow?
You told me she was sleeping. You told me she was safe. You LIED. I have seen the glass and the ice. I know what you keep in the dark.
You have your perfect Dyad girl. Well, farewell, King Bertram. May your mountain choke on its own glory.
Long live the Cŵn Annwn. May it rot from the head down.
—Morgan."
A silence fell over the hall so complete they could hear the drip of condensation from a stalactite. The foreign dignitaries had gone very still. The king's face was a marble mask, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. The public airing of his private manipulations, the reference to a secret horror ("the glass and the ice"), the sheer, seething hatred of it—it was a masterclass in public evisceration.
Bertram slowly placed his goblet down. The clink was unnaturally loud.
"The search party,"he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "They are to return to the field. Now. They do not come back until they carry that ungrateful viper before me, in chains or in a sack. Is that understood?"
The order was a confession. The mask was off.
Before Rhys could acknowledge the command, a new disturbance erupted. A guard captain, his armor scorched and face smudged with soot, stumbled into the hall, bypassing protocol.
"Your Majesty! Forgive the intrusion—it's the lower wards! The residential blocks!"
"What is it?" Bertram snapped, his composure fraying.
"Ghosts, Sire! Two of them. Vengeful spirits. They're… they're not attacking. They're wearing people. A baker. A stone-carver's apprentice. They're walking them to the edge of the gorges, speaking with their mouths… terrible things. We cannot strike without killing the host!"
A cold, mirthless laugh echoed from the entrance to the servant's passages. Becky stood there, her healer's robes stained, her face hollow. Her eyes were fixed on the king. "She is bored in your oubliette, Your Majesty. She sends her regards. She asks: how many of your own people will you murder tonight?"
The dinner was in ruins. The king stood, a towering figure of rage and humiliation. "Gareth! Contain this! Exorcise the spirits!"
From the high table, Kaitlyn spoke, her voice cutting through the chaos. "You can't. She's tied them to the hosts' life force. Kill the ghost, you kill the person. It's a witch's knot." She didn't know how she knew, but the understanding had come from the bond—a cool, analytical certainty from Erik, who was piecing together the magical theory from scraps he'd read.
Bertram's gaze swung to her, a mix of fury and appraisal. "Then what would you have me do, Dyad?"
"Let us try," Erik said, standing beside his sister. "We can sense the separation. The ghost's signature from the host's. We might be able to… untie the knot." It was a gamble, but it was a chance to act, to save lives the king was willing to sacrifice.
The king stared at them, the political disaster, the magical threat, and the defiance of his prizes colliding in his eyes. He gave a sharp, grudging nod. "Do it. Fail, and your next training session will be permanent."
As the twins moved to follow the guard captain, Kaitlyn caught a final, venomous look from Prince David. His humiliation was now complete, upstaged by the very girl he coveted and the brother he despised.
---
Later, in the secret, steam-filled dark, Kaitlyn was shaking. The attempt to separate the ghosts had been a partial, horrifying success. They had sensed the knot, a vile snarl of mourning and rage. With Erik guiding her focus to the thinnest thread, Kaitlyn had managed to snip the connection to one ghost, sending it wailing into dissolution. The baker had survived, collapsing into sobs.
The second ghost, bound to a young knight of the citadel, had been stronger. In the moment of their combined focus, the ghost had turned the knight's own dagger on his heart before they could intervene. They had watched a man die by his own hand, his eyes wide with a terror that wasn't his own.
Morwen's laughter, transmitted through some foul magic, had echoed in the stone corridor. "One for one, little hunters. The mountain drinks its own blood."
It was too much. The public shaming, the impossible horror of the ghosts, the weight of Arthur's empty seat at dinner. Kaitlyn had fled to the one place that felt remotely like a refuge—the disused gallery near the old armory where she and Arthur had sometimes met to talk, away from David's eyes.
She didn't hear him approach.
"Kaitlyn."
She turned. Arthur stood there, his face grave in the dim light of a single glow-crystal. He looked older, the events of the day etched into him.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice raw. "David…"
"David is drinking himself into a stupor, celebrating his father's 'firm hand.'" Arthur took a step closer. His usual quiet intensity was different, stripped bare. "I heard what you did. With the ghost. You tried."
"We failed. A man is dead."
"You tried,"he repeated, with force. "That's more than any of them would have done. It's who you are. It's why…"
He stopped, struggling with words that were not his native tongue. He was a boy of action, of silent loyalty.
"It's why what?" she whispered.
"It's why I would follow you," he said, the admission torn from him. "Not him. Not the king. You. You and your brother. You're not just power. You're… you're a compass. You point true." He swallowed, his next words so quiet they were almost lost in the mountain's sigh. "And it's why I love you, Kaitlyn. Not because you're a Dyad. Because you burn, and you won't let the mountain put you out."
The words hung between them, fragile and immense. Kaitlyn felt a heat in her chest that had nothing to do with her power. It was a recognition, a terrifying, beautiful yes.
From the shadow of a pillar, a figure stirred.
Prince David stepped into the light. His face was not flushed with drink, but pale with a cold, homicidal fury. He had heard everything.
"A compass," David repeated, his voice slick with disdain. "A ward… in love with a stolen, half-breed weapon. How poetic." He didn't look at Kaitlyn. His eyes were on Arthur, and in them was the simple, clean intent of a man ordering a trash disposal. "Guards."
Two royal sentinels materialized from the gloom.
"The ward Arthur has confessed to treasonous sentiments and a corrupting infatuation with a state asset. Take him to the West Pillar. Hang him at dawn. Let the mountain see what happens to faulty tools."
"NO!" Kaitlyn's scream was a physical force. The air around her shimmered with heat. She lunged, not with magic, but with pure, feral rage, fingers hooked into claws aimed at David's sneering face.
Erik was there.
He didn't appear—he was simply there, his body a solid wall between his sister and the prince. He caught her, wrapping his arms around her in a grip that was iron, not embrace. "Katie, NO! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!"
She fought, screaming, tears of fury blinding her. "HE'LL KILL HIM! LET ME GO!"
Erik held her, his mouth close to her ear, his voice a desperate, focused chant only she could hear, pouring down the bond. "He wins if you do this. He wins. We lose everything. We die here. Arthur dies for nothing. Look at me. Breathe. We are the Dyad. We are the link. We survive this. To end him. To end all of them. Breathe, Katie. For him. Breathe."
His will, his cold, strategic fury, was an anchor in her storm. Her struggles weakened. A sob wrenched from her throat. She watched, over Erik's shoulder, as the guards dragged Arthur away. He didn't fight. His eyes held hers until the shadows took him, and in them was no fear, only a sorrowful, fierce pride.
David straightened his tunic, a smirk playing on his lips. "A wise intervention, brother. You may yet be the smarter half." He turned and walked away, leaving them in the gallery's chill.
Kaitlyn slumped against Erik, the fire gone, replaced by a cold, vast emptiness. The bond between them hummed, not with power, but with a shared, silent vow, etched in grief and crystallized hatred.
In her dungeon, Morwen felt a new, delicious spike of anguish pierce the mountain's stone and smiled.
And in their cavern, Maria jolted awake from a new dream—not of Emily or George, but of a young man with quiet eyes, standing at the edge of a great darkness, a rope around his neck, and her daughter's scream echoing in a void.
The mountain was indeed drinking its own blood. And the rebellion had found its first martyr.