The magical signature turned out to be nothing—so kind of residual energy from breaking the binding that Morgana said would fade in a few days—but the panic it caused was very much sothing, and a week later half the visiting packs had officially withdrawn from the alliance.
Not dramatically. Not with declarations or speeches. They just—left. Packed up and went ho like the last two months had been a temporary inconvenience instead of a war.
We were down to one hundred twenty-three fighters. Still more than we’d started with but significantly less than the two hundred we’d had at peak strength, and my brain kept running scenarios where the next threat ca and one hundred twenty-three wasn’t enough.
"You’re catastrophizing again." Riven’s voice cut through my spiral and I turned to find him leaning in the doorway of the training yard where I’d been practicing temporal magic for the last three hours.
"I’m being realistic." The distinction was basically nonexistent at this point. "We lost almost half our alliance. What happens when—"
"When the next threat cos, we’ll handle it." He moved closer. "Sa as we handled the demon. Sa as we’ve handled everything else."
Sa as we handled everything else. Right. With minimal planning, maximum chaos, and ninety-three casualties.
Yeah that was sustainable.
Through the bond Riven’s patience wrapped around like a blanket, and I tried not to be annoyed that my catastrophizing was apparently loud enough he could feel it from across the pack house.
"Show ." He gestured to the training dummy I’d been using. "The temporal magic. How much stronger are you?"
How much stronger. That was—actually a good question because I’d been practicing every day since breaking the binding and the magic was responding differently now, easier, like destroying three hundred years of demon summoning had unlocked sothing.
I reached for the hybrid core—that space between contradictions—and pushed intent at the dummy.
Freeze.
Ti stopped. Not stuttered or slowed. Just completely stopped. The dummy frozen mid-motion, the leaves on nearby trees suspended in mid-fall, even the air felt still.
"How long can you hold it?" Riven’s voice ca quiet. Awed.
"I don’t know." Honest answer. "Before the binding I could manage thirty seconds. Now I—" I let the freeze drop and ti snapped back to normal. "I haven’t tested the limit yet."
Haven’t tested the limit because pushing temporal magic too far could collapse spaceti or age fifty years or stop my own heart again, and testing those boundaries seed like a terrible life choice.
"You’re stronger." Not a question. An observation. "Breaking the binding changed you."
Changed . Yeah. Dying temporarily and becoming a demon anchor and then destroying it from the inside had definitely done things to my magic, and I wasn’t sure if those things were good or catastrophically dangerous.
Probably both.
"Co here." Riven held out his hand and I took it because arguing seed exhausting. "You’ve been training for three hours. You need a break."
A break. Right. Because collapsing from magical exhaustion would be really productive.
He pulled toward the pack house and we ended up on the roof—because apparently that was still my default processing location—and honestly the view was better than staring at training dummies.
"Talk to ." His voice was gentle. Patient. Classic Riven. "Not about the alliance or prophecies or threats. Just—talk to . About you."
About . I didn’t even know where to start with that because who was I outside of Hybrid Queen and alliance leader and person who kept almost dying?
"I’m—" The words stuck in my throat. "I’m tired. All the ti. Even when I sleep. It’s like—" I couldn’t finish because admitting exhaustion felt like admitting weakness.
"It’s like you’ve been fighting for months and your body hasn’t figured out how to stop." He finished for . "That’s normal. That’s trauma."
Trauma. Right. The thing I was definitely not processing because processing required stopping and stopping ant thinking and thinking ant rembering and rembering ant—
"You died." His voice was quiet. "Three weeks ago you stopped your own heart for ninety seconds. That’s—" He had to stop and I felt his fear spike through the bond. "That’s not sothing you just move past."
Not sothing I just moved past. Except I’d been trying to do exactly that because dwelling on temporary death seed counterproductive when we had alliance politics and prophecy interpretations and—
I was deflecting. Actively deflecting from dealing with the fact that I’d died and it had been terrifying and I couldn’t stop having nightmares about what happened if they couldn’t restart my heart.
"I keep waking up convinced I’m still dead." The confession ca out small. Broken. "Like the defibrillator didn’t work and this is all just—I don’t know, dying brain hallucination."
Dying brain hallucination. That sounded insane when I said it out loud but my brain was convinced it was a valid possibility.
"You’re not dead." Riven’s hand found mine. "You’re here. With . Alive. Breathing. Real."
Real. Right. Except how did I know what was real when I’d spent ninety seconds in clinical death and the line between alive and dead had gotten really blurry?
"Touch ." The words ca out desperate. "Please. I need—I need to feel sothing that proves I’m actually here."
He didn’t hesitate. Just pulled into his lap and his mouth found mine and the kiss was gentle and patient and absolutely grounding.
This. This was real. The taste of him and the feel of his hands in my hair and the way his heartbeat was steady under my palm.
When he pulled back his eyes were dark and through the bond I caught his desire mixing with patience mixing with absolute certainty that we had ti.
"Better?" His voice was rough.
"Better." Mostly honest. "I just—I need ti to process. All of it. The demon. The binding. Dying. I need—"
"Ti." He finished for . "Which you have. We’re not going anywhere."
We’re not going anywhere. Right. Except that’s when Morgana’s voice cut through the mind-link again, and I was starting to think she had terrible timing or the universe hated or both.
"Selene. Conference room. You need to see this."
"What now?" The words ca out resigned because apparently we couldn’t go twelve hours without so new crisis.
"Research findings." Her voice was grim. "About Cassia’s original summoning. About why she called the demon in the first place."
Why she called the demon. Right. The question we’d been avoiding because the answer was probably terrible.
"On my way." I pulled away from Riven reluctantly. "Sorry. I—"
"Don’t apologize." He stood with . "We’ll finish this later. After you save the world again."
After I saved the world again. No pressure.
Except when we got to the conference room and saw what Morgana had found, I realized saving the world might actually be exactly what we were going to have to do.
"The demon wasn’t alone." Morgana pulled up ancient texts I couldn’t read. "It was the first of seven. Cassia summoned it to fight sothing else. Sothing worse. Sothing she called The Root."
The Root. The thing the prophecy had ntioned. Destroy the darkness at the root.
"What is it?" My voice ca out smaller than I wanted.
"We don’t know." Morgana’s expression was grim. "But Cassia spent thirty years fighting it before she lost control of the demon. And according to her notes, The Root is—" She stopped. Swallowed. "It’s waking up."
Waking up. Right. Because one demon wasn’t enough, now we had sothing called The Root that was bad enough Cassia had summoned seven demons to fight it.
No pressure.
And that’s when the alarm bells started ringing and Marcus’s voice cut across the pack link: "Unknown visitors at the periter. Three of them. Not wolves. Not vampires. Not witches. Sothing—else."
Sothing else. Fantastic. Love that specificity.
Apparently the universe really did hate .
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