The silence of the forest crashed down, heavier and more absolute than any sound. For a long moment, Connall and Althea stood panting in the center of the carnage, the metallic tang of blood and the sharp, clean scent of ozone thick in the air. The ethereal silver aura that had enveloped them vanished, not fading but collapsing inward, leaving a psychic void that was immediately filled by a blinding, razor-sharp agony.
It erupted in their chests simultaneously, a violent backlash from the bond they had just wielded like a weapon. The torrent of raw power had been a shield against the pain, a roaring inferno that had cauterized their connection. Now, with the fight over, the shield was gone and the debt came due with vicious interest. It was a tearing sensation, a feeling of being ripped apart from the inside out, as if their very souls were being flayed. Connall gasped, staggering back as if struck by an invisible hammer. A few feet away, Althea cried out, a raw, choked sound, and collapsed to her knees, her body curling in on itself.
Every instinct, honed by years of survival, screamed at them to pull apart, to put distance between themselves and the source of this shared torment. He took a stumbling step away; she tried to crawl in the opposite direction. But that only intensified the torture. The pain sharpened with every inch of separation, a cruel, cosmic joke that bound them together in their suffering. Gritting his teeth until his jaw was a knot of granite, Connall understood. To lessen the agony, he had to do the one thing his entire being rebelled against: move closer to her.
He forced himself to turn, to close the distance. Each step toward her was a violation of a decade of solitude. He reached down and hauled Althea to her feet, his grip rough and impersonal.
She recoiled from his touch, her silver eyes wide with mistrust and agony. But as his hand closed around her arm, the searing pain subsided by a punishing fraction. The fire that threatened to incinerate them from within banked to a white-hot coal. It was still excruciating, but it was no longer annihilating. They stood rigid, two mortal enemies forced into an unwilling, agonizing embrace, the air crackling with their mutual animosity.
"We can't stay here," Connall rasped, his voice raw. The pragmatist in him, the survivor who had lived for a decade in the shadows, was already clawing its way through the haze of pain. They were exposed, wounded, and whoever sent these five would undoubtedly send more. "Search them. Quickly. We take anything useful and we run."
Althea flinched, her gaze skittering over the sprawled bodies. The thought of touching the dead men, of rifling through the pockets of those who had tried to kill her moments before, made her stomach churn. But the cold logic in his command was a shard of ice cutting through her fear. She gave a jerky nod, her face pale and drawn in the faint moonlight. The bond was their motivator, a relentless whip driving them forward. Survival overrode revulsion.
Connall knelt beside the leader, his own stomach turning as he began the grim task. He ignored the man's sightless stare, his hands moving with a grim, practiced efficiency over the dark leather armor. Tucked into the man's belt was a dagger. Its sheath was simple leather, but the hilt was heavy, ornate. He pulled it free. The pommel was a snarling wolf's head, carved from a single piece of polished obsidian.
*Guntram Volkov's mark.* Not the Bloodfang pack's sigil. The usurper's personal crest.
The cold certainty of it settled in his gut like a stone. This wasn't a pack action or a territorial dispute. This was a personal death warrant, signed and sent by the Alpha who sat on his father's throne. He felt a surge of pure, cold hatred that momentarily eclipsed the bond's agony. He glanced at Althea. She saw the dagger in his hand, saw the unmistakable crest, and the last flicker of bewildered loyalty to her old life died in her eyes. It was a betrayal so absolute it left her breathless, the foundation of her world turned to dust.
"Connall," she whispered, her voice sharp with a strange urgency. He looked over to where she knelt by another assassin. She held up a small, oilskin pouch. "I know this scent."
She fumbled it open with trembling fingers, revealing a fragrant, dark green paste. "Moon-herbs," she breathed, the words coming from a place of instinct, not memory. "For… for bond-strain." The knowledge was a piece of Luna lore surfacing from a life she'd never been allowed to live. The implication was chilling, a question hanging in the blood-soaked air. Why would assassins carry a remedy for the very curse afflicting their targets?
There was no time to ponder the riddle. Althea cautiously smeared a small amount onto the back of her hand. The agonizing thrum between them didn't vanish, but the razor's edge dulled instantly. The tearing sensation receded into a deep, insistent ache that was almost bearable. The relief was so profound they both let out a shuddering breath they hadn't realized they were holding.
Connall crossed the space between them in two long strides, his hand outstretched, a silent, desperate demand. She placed a dollop of the cool paste onto his palm, her fingers brushing his for a fraction of a second. The brief contact was a jolt of unwanted awareness, a spark in the cold void of their animosity. He applied it, the blessed quietening of the storm within allowing him to think clearly for the first time since the fight ended.
With the pain lessened, clarity returned. There was one body left, the one who had tried to flee. Inside the man's armor, sealed in a waterproof sleeve, was a folded piece of parchment. Connall took it, his fingers stiff. He carefully unrolled it. It wasn't a simple map. It was a complex chart of cured hide, covered in cryptic symbols and unfamiliar star patterns overlaid on geographic features he didn't recognize. A faint, dormant magical energy hummed from the vellum. It was a puzzle, not a path.
They stood in the center of the blood-soaked clearing, the spoils of their desperate victory laid bare. The dagger was their proof, the herbs a temporary truce with their curse, and the map… the map was their only way forward. The weight of their new reality settled on them. They were no longer just fugitives. They were the sworn enemies of a tyrant, armed with a mystery and chained together by a curse.
Connall's gaze traced the alien symbols on the parchment, his brow furrowed in frustration. The lines and swirls were meaningless, a foreign language of stars and ink. He scanned the edges, the decorative scrollwork that framed the chart. He was about to dismiss it as flourish when his eyes caught it.
It was tiny, almost invisible, woven into the pattern of a curling vine near the bottom corner. A small, stylized silver crescent moon.
A jolt went through him, electric and sharp, a memory striking him like lightning. He wasn't just seeing a symbol; he was seeing a flash of a silver banner snapping in the wind, the glint of that same crescent on the gorget of a guardsman's armor, a story his father told him of the loyal men who guarded the royal family. That was no Bloodfang mark. It was old. Ancient. The sigil of the Silvermoon Royal Guard. *His* family's sigil.
The realization struck him with the force of a physical blow. The assassins hadn't made this map; they had stolen it. It was a relic from his own past, a key forged by his own people, now fallen into his hands by a twist of bloody fate. He looked up, the prince he thought long dead stirring beneath the grim exterior of the rogue. His eyes, burning with a new intensity, met Althea's. The cryptic puzzle had suddenly reframed itself into a message. Hope, fierce, unfamiliar, and dangerous, ignited in his chest for the first time in a decade.
"This isn't their map," he said, his voice rough with an emotion he couldn't name. "It's ours. And it's meant to lead us home."