“Look at you, little witch, taking on a fragment on your own. I am so proud of you.”

I gasped awake, Mouriana’s voice terrifying me more than it should have. This wasn’t anything new. She’d been in my head all day for some time. That was before I knew who she really was.

Pain lanced through my ribs as I sat upright too fast. The ache radiated everywhere, making me lightheaded. With my pulse pounding against my temples, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to breathe through it.

The room swam around me in a hazy blur of muted colours. Its walls were made of pale stone, inscribed with sacred runes. Thick velvet curtains, drawn tight over the windows, muted the golden afternoon light filtering through the cracks. There was a faint scent of lavender and sage mingling with a sharp tang from the medicinal salves. My body felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry in a storm.

I could hear the defensive wards buzzing along the corners of the room. Okay, a witch haven, but where?

My last memory was the shock wave from that creature’s destruction, Devon and Azriel, and then—nothing.

My eyes shifted to the quilt wrapped around my legs, a dark blue satin with an unfamiliar crest stitched on it. I brushed my fingers across the fabric absentmindedly, feeling the Gaia’s Prism pattern interlock with the three elemental symbols.

And then I looked at myself. The simple cotton shift I wore was crumpled and slightly damp with sweat, clinging uncomfortably to my skin. As for my hair, it had been neatly braided for travel, but now it was a tangle of black strands sticking to my forehead and neck.

I rubbed the ache from my sternum, wincing as my fingers brushed the faint scar where the talisman once hung.

Gone, but not forgotten. Mouriana was still watching me from somewhere in the shadows, like a predator stalking its Prey in The Dark.

The thought sent shivers down my spine.

“Mouriana,” I rasped into the emptiness.

Silence, as expected. Still, the cold silk of her voice lingered in my mind, like the last breath of winter.

When the door creaked open, my head jerked towards the sound, my heart lurched. But the moment Devon stepped through, I felt the pressure in my chest ease.

The moment his eyes locked on mine, his expression changed - relief flashing behind his usual calm. He exhaled softly, and his shoulders eased up a bit.

“We need to stop meeting like this, my sweet C—il.”

There was something soothing about the deep timbre of his voice. Even with that teasing smirk, his concern oozed through the cracks in his guarded exterior.

He looked tired today, though.

Several locks of his dark hair fell over his forehead in a way I knew he hated. With the sleeves of his black tunic rolled up, I could see the defensive runes along his forearms.

The black leather harness crossing his chest held two silver-forged daggers, each signed with Gaia’s glyph of balance and judgment. His trousers were mud-streaked and wrinkled, and his boots were scuffed.

I had never seen him so dishevelled, and even now he didn’t bother fixing his hair. He was here for me.

“I’m trying, Lord Irving,” I muttered, smiling weakly.

In seconds, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand reaching out to find mine. He bled heat into my cold fingers.

“How long?” I asked.

“Two days,” he said softly, drawing idle circles with his thumb on the back of my hand. “The healers said you burned through more magic than your core could handle.”

“No kidding.”

My memory stirred, pulling power from the aquifers, making Nelwost’s natural magic obey me, fighting that thing. I’d done it without Mouriana. Without her bond and guidance. That wasn’t exactly true. Back then, she spoke to me too.

“Zaria?” I asked.

Devon’s mouth twitched a little. “Alive,” he said. “Barely. The possession festered for too long, and it will take time to recover completely.”

I sagged back against the pillows, relief flooding me before dread clamped down like iron shackles.

“The creature” that thing’”

The muscles in his jaw twitched. “Gone,” he said. “For now.”

There was no need to say it out loud. Magic like that doesn’t just disappear. It scatters and regroups.

My throat hurt as I whispered, “It’s after Mouriana.”

Devon nodded. “It’s connected to her,” he said. “When Gaia crushed the dark and the Source was exiled, it split into fragments that formed some of the most devastating curses. The stronger the fragment, the more determined they were to devour the Source and become the core of themselves. To gain enough power to absorb Mouriana, these curses consume and corrupt magic until nothing remains.”

I closed my eyes and recalled what I knew about the dark. It all started with a witch who craved immortality. He ripped open a rift between realms, unleashing a slow, insidious tide of malevolent energy into our world. Over the centuries, that darkness adapted, evolved, until it became a creeping, pervasive force that threatened to consume everything.

I never would have guessed it had taken the form of a dark faerie. Or that Gaia would allow her to forge a contract with me. Then again, maybe it made sense. She was the source, the only being capable of absorbing the scattered fragments. But if she reclaimed all of them, wouldn’t that make her whole? And if she was complete, wouldn’t she be impossible to defeat?

My fingers curled against my palm. “Why Nelwost?” I murmured.

“The coven’s ley lines connect directly to Wridel’s primary aquifer. It is one of Gaia’s primordial blessed sites, holding vast magical reserves. Now, it’s compromised.”

A slow breath pushed past my lips. The Circle of the Willow Coven was one of the primary conduits for magical balance, feeding elemental stability into the outer districts and great lakes through the aquifers. If it was tainted”

“The curse could spread,” I whispered.

Devon’s fingers tightened around mine. “It already has.”

My stomach dropped. “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

His grip stayed tight. “The fragment’s roots were already extending beyond the Circle before we intervened. The Council believes it’s moving through the great lakes, seeping into other parts of Wridel.”

A slow, creeping dread clawed up my spine. “The lakes connect to the other covens,” I murmured. Again with these fragments targeting witches most of all. Well, it was fitting in a way. A witch brought the dark into being.

“Yes.”

I squeezed his hand. “How far has it gone?”

His silence told me more than I wanted to know.

“Shit,” I whispered. “The Shadow Orientals started something we may not be able to contain, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” Devon said again. “And now the Council wants to implement containment wards across all water-based covens.”

“Quarantines,” I muttered.

“Yes.”

We both knew what that meant. A return to the old laws, when covens were locked down in their sectors. No open trade of magical resources. Distrust would fester once again, and the tenuous unity Wridel had rebuilt after the last war would crumble.

I shifted restlessly, wincing as pain jolted through my ribs again. “She spoke to me when I woke up,” I said abruptly.

Devon’s head snapped toward me. “Who?”

“Mouriana.”

His jaw flexed. “What did she say?”

“That she was proud of me for taking on the fragment on my own.”

Devon didn’t move or blink. “She’s testing you,” he said after a moment.

“I know.”

Silence stretched between us as I considered telling him why Mouriana wasn’t bound to me any longer. The wards along the walls pulsed in sync with our breathing.

“I think she knew I’d face this fragment eventually. Knew I’d try that spell. And she wanted to see if I could do it without her,” I said.

“And you did.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “But she still got what she wanted.”

He frowned. “Which is?”

I stared at his giant hand stroking mine. “Proof that I’m exactly what she hoped I’d be.”

His eyes softened slightly. “You’re not her, Celeste.”

“No,” I whispered. “But one day, I’m going to have to kill her. And I’m nowhere near ready yet.”

Devon’s jaw flexed, the faintest tic betraying his controlled facade. He didn’t try to contradict me or tell me I was wrong. He simply lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to end your contract?” His voice was soft, but the question wasn’t.

I felt the unspoken worry in that question, of hours spent wondering what had really happened in the void and why I hadn’t told him any of it yet.

My mind went to the scar on my chest. The skin there was smooth now, paler than the rest of my ebony skin and slightly raised, a faint crescent where the talisman had burned against my skin like a constant, pulsing reminder of Mouriana’s power.

I traced the scar with the pad of my thumb. “It wasn’t really a contract,” I said after a long pause. “Not in the way we think of one. Mouriana didn’t bind herself to me because I summoned her.”

Devon’s brows knit together. “Then why did she?”

I licked my lips, the taste of ash and regret still lingering there. “I truly don’t know. All I’ve heard so far are half-truths and possibly lies. But she said I was apparently born tethered to the dark.”

Devon didn’t flinch or recoil as I expected. He simply stayed perfectly still, his hand still wrapped around mine, waiting for me to continue.

“Mouriana told me that Gaia allowed the bond because she needed me to stop that fragment in the void,” I said. “That the dark recognized me the moment I was born. I was never meant to wield elemental magic the way other witches do. I was born to contain the dark.”

Then he exhaled slowly. “Contain it” or become it?”

My throat closed, because that was the question I had been too afraid to ask Mouriana. The question that haunted me with every spell I cast, with every whisper of power that didn’t belong to me alone since that day. I’d long suspected it was why my powers grew.

“I don’t know,” I said finally. “But Mouriana thinks I can do both. She said I’m her adversary, but also the one who can dispel the dark when it rises again.”

His hand tightened around mine. “She said you’d fight her,” he guessed.

“Yes.” I forced a bitter laugh. “She said Gaia didn’t choose me to end the dark. She chose me to fight it, over and over again. That’s what the bond was about. It’s why I was selected as a successor.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line. “Ah, to make you strong enough to face her.”

“Exactly.” I leaned my head back against the pillows, eyes squeezing shut. “She used me to reclaim her power in the void and that entity in the high council too. Now that she has most of her powers back, the balance is broken. I was her key to the fragment in Nelwost too, I guess. She knew I could pull it out by tapping into the aquifers because she helped forge that part of me when we bonded. And she taught me that spell too.”

“So, what ended the contract?” he asked.

I opened my eyes and turned my head toward him. “She shattered it herself,” I said. “She said the bond had fulfilled its purpose. That Gaia never intended it to last beyond that point. But before she did it, she said that one day we’d meet again. And when we did’” My voice faltered. “We’d destroy each other or one would destroy the other.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Devon didn’t speak right away. He just watched me, his brow furrowed in that contemplative way that usually preceded some unpleasant truth. His jaw worked as if chewing through every possible outcome, dissecting every implication behind Mouriana’s words.

I wanted to fill the silence, but Devon was already up and pacing, one hand raking through his hair, shoulders tense under the black leather straps of his weapons harness. His footsteps were soft on the polished stone, but the energy rolling off him hummed with the wards.

Finally, he stopped, his back partially turned to me, eyes locked on the wall. “I believe she may not have told you things exactly as they are,” he said at last.

“Mouriana never does,” I muttered.

“Exactly,” he agreed. He turned back to me, eyes sharp. “She omitted certain truths deliberately.”

He started pacing again, his movements more agitated now. “She may be trying to shape you into her successor, C—il.”

“Her successor?” I repeated, as if saying it aloud might somehow make it less impossible.

Devon stopped pacing and levelled me with a look. “Think about it,” he said. “From everything I’ve gleaned about the old records, Mouriana isn’t an entity who got drunk on power. She was the dark. Its source. Its core. But she was displaced—forced to leave behind fragments of her essence when Gaia imprisoned her influence centuries ago.”

I swallowed hard.

“What if bonding with you wasn’t just about reclaiming her fragments?” Devon asked. “What if she was preparing you to take her place?”

The thought sent a chill through me. “But why?” I whispered.

He ran a hand through his hair, his jaw tight. “I think what she really meant was—when you meet again, you’ll either destroy each other or become one.”

I stiffened as the meaning locked into place like a door sealing shut.

“If you’re tethered to the dark—if she didn’t lie—then you’re a fragment of its core. And fragments can be absorbed by the Source.”

The scar on my chest throbbed, phantom pain flaring where the talisman had burned me.

He crouched in front of me, gripping my hands, grounding me without hurting me.

“Mouriana planned this too well,” he said, and his voice was thick with frustration. His fingers raked through his hair. “And I am so sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”

“She bonded with you to test you,” he continued. “To see if you could handle her power. And you did.”

My throat tightened. The scar pulsed again, as if remembering.

“You didn’t just stop that fragment, Celi.” Devon gave a humorless chuckle, glancing at the faint scar behind my shift. “You commanded the aquifers under Nelwost. You tapped into Gaia’s primordial power. You performed a forbidden spell—one no one without lifeblood magic should have survived.”

The horrific simplicity of Mouriana’s plan hit me hard. But Devon’s grip tightened slightly, pulling me back from my spiralling thoughts.

“She wants you strong enough’” His voice cracked, as his brows knit together. Saying it out loud would make it real.

Everything clicked together.

I gasped. “Gracious Gaia.” The words scraped out, breathless. “She wants to devour me.”

Devon didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t need to. The muscle ticking in his jaw, the tremor in his grip—they said it all.

She’d left me with a thread of her power. An invisible, dormant tether. Waiting. Ready to be restored the moment she rose again.

The final step of her plan was absorbing me.

“How do we stop it?” My voice barely carried.

Devon stood, tension coiled in his frame, fingers dragging through his hair yet again. Was it because he was frustrated or because it was dishevelled? “She already told you how. You have to destroy her first. If she defeats you’” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

I shut my eyes. “If I keep getting stronger,” I said slowly, “I’m making myself more useful to her.”

It was a cruel paradox. Mouriana hadn’t just set me up as her adversary. She had made me her stooge—one she could consume when I was at my peak, regaining the power she lost. But why would Gaia allow this? It made no sense. If Mouriana regained her full strength, she could challenge Gaia herself.

With every spell, every time I bent dark magic to my will, I played into her hands.

“Gaia, she’s clever,” I whispered.

“Too clever,” Devon growled. “But she’s arrogant. She won’t think you can outmanoeuvre her.”

“She might be right.”

“She isn’t,” he said firmly. “She thinks power is everything. You know better.”

His certainty cut through my fear. Mouriana thrived on fear, on chaos. She believed light always yielded to dark.

But I wasn’t just light or dark. I had Gaia’s elemental gifts. Devon’s Lycan power. And soon, the abilities of Wridel’s Sovereign.

“Okay,” I exhaled. “We find her before she’s ready to devour me.”

“Exactly.” He squeezed my hand.

I shook my head, forcing my thoughts to settle. “Where are we?”

Devon blinked, caught off guard by the shift. “Nelwost.”

My gaze swept the room—the runes lining the walls, the faint scent of mineral-rich water beneath the sharp tang of medicinal salves.

Of course. The Governor’s Healing Quarters, a fortified wing of Nelwost’s High Ward Hall. One of the last strongholds untouched by the devourer’s corruption.

I shifted, uneasy. “I hate it here.”

“I know.” His mouth twitched.

“This place feels like a mausoleum disguised as a hospital.”

“It kind of is.” He shrugged. “The Council wanted you here in case the fragment left any residual” influence.”

“In other words, they don’t trust me.”

“They don’t trust the dark.” Devon’s tone was calm. “And since you walked into the void and came back, wielding more power than any witch they’ve ever seen, you’ve become their cautionary tale.”

“Great.” I slumped back, rubbing my face. “Another reason to depose me.”

He chuckled, settling beside me. “You did shatter a fragment and an insidious curse with a forbidden spell.”

“Yes, while mostly unconscious.”

“Doesn’t matter. To them, you’re a weapon with a mind of her own. Exactly what Mouriana wanted.”

My stomach turned. “And what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Devon leaned in and brushed his nose against mine. “Be the force she never anticipated.” His breath was warm against my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine. “Let her believe she knows your next move,” he whispered, “then we will shatter her expectations.”

I gripped his hand. “You’d better get me ready, Lord Irving.”

His lips curled into that familiar half-smirk. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”