Page 50 of The First Scar
The Light Glyph-Key.
I crossed the distance on unsteady legs. My fingers hovered over the surface. Warm. The vibration traveled up through my bones.
I used the Mark-tempered blade to pry it free.
The room plunged into darkness.
Every ward, every rune, every faintly glowing symbol—gone. Snuffed out like candle flames in a sudden wind. The shadows rushed in to fill the void, thick and hungry, and for a split-second I couldn't see anything at all.
"Amaria." Brannick's voice, clipped. Urgent.
I looked up.
The dust motes had stopped falling. They hung in the air like frozen stars, suspended between one heartbeat and the next. One shuddered, dropped an inch, then froze again. Time itself was stuttering.
The Veil was destabilizing. And we were standing in the wound.
"Go." The word scraped out of my throat. "Now."
The descent was controlled chaos. Rope tearing through my grip, stone streaking by, the Veil still shuddering at our backs like an aftershock that wouldn't quit. Controlled being generous. Falling with style was more accurate.
My boots hit the ground and I was already running. No plan. No grace. Just legs and the sincere desire to not die in a place that smelled like wet limestone.
Maxx was ahead of us—two blades, no hesitation, cutting through Enforcers like he'd been born doing it. Ryla's crossbow bolts punched through throats to his left while Torin blocked the swords aimed at her back. They moved in a wordless, locked rhythm, anticipating every shift in the other’s weight without a single glance.
I whistled to Maxx again and his eyes found mine instantly.
He nodded and then the air shimmered.
Behind the enforcers, a fresh wave of rebels poured from behind the abandoned buildings—dozens of them, war cries tearing from them as they charged the remaining enforcers. When the enforcers turned to face their new threat, Maxx, Ryla and Torin took their easy exit and sprinted to join us. Behind them when the enforcers’ blades met the new threat, their blades passed through air.
Maxx's glamour. One last trick up his sleeve.
Behind us, stone ground against stone. The tower.
The Wight was waking again.
I could hear it—the slow, terrible groan of weathered joints remembering how to move. The fusion had bought us time, not a pardon. Without my Shadow and Light holding it dormant, the wards had reset. And now they knew exactly what I was.
We didn't stop until the tower was a smudge on the horizon.
We collapsed in the scrubland a mile out—tall grass gone brown and brittle, a caved-in farmstead with one wall still standing and a stone trough full of rainwater. Lungs spent, bodies folded into whatever shadow we could find. Glamorous. The ballads would leave this part out.
I leaned against the frigid stone and willed my hands to stop shaking.
Maxx and the others caught up seconds later, he gulped for air, one hand braced against a buckling wall. He looked up at me between breaths—and for once, the smirk wasn't there.
"Okay," he managed between breaths. "That was moderately impressive."
Coming from him, it almost sounded like respect.
"But, don't let it go to your head."
And there it was. I glared at him. "You're welcome."
Brannick crouched beside me, pulling the glyph-key from his vest. He held it out, and I took it without thinking—then wished I hadn't.
The tablet was still warm. Still palpitating with that strange, trapped-heartbeat hum. But something had changed.
