The first sign that the world had noticed wasn't an army.
It was the wind.
It rose without warning, sharp and restless, sweeping across the ridge where Aelin stood. Her cloak snapped behind her, shadows curling instinctively around her ankles as if bracing for impact.
Kael felt it too.
Not through the bond but through instinct sharpened by years of survival.
"Something's wrong," he said.
Aelin didn't answer immediately. Her gaze was distant, unfocused, as if she were listening to something no one else could hear.
Then she flinched.
"It's spreading," she whispered.
Kael turned fully toward her. "What is?"
"The pull," she said. "The mark. It's not just awake anymore."
Her fingers curled over her wrist, right where the sigil burned faintly beneath her skin.
"It's calling," she said. "And not quietly."
Kael swore under his breath.
They moved fast after that.
The forest that had sheltered them for days began to feel thinner, less private. Sounds carried farther. The air buzzed with tension, like the moment before lightning struck.
By nightfall, they reached a trading road old, cracked, rarely used. But there were tracks.
Fresh ones.
Kael crouched, running his fingers over the dirt. "At least three groups. Different directions. Different weights."
Aelin's stomach dropped. "They're searching."
"No," he corrected grimly. "They're converging."
They didn't light a fire that night.
Instead, they sat back-to-back beneath a twisted oak, weapons within reach, sleep coming in shallow fragments. Each time Aelin drifted, she dreamed of eyes watching, measuring, waiting.
And far away…
Others dreamed too.
In the northern provinces, a woman jolted awake from her trance, blood spilling from her nose as the crystal before her shattered.
"The beacon," she gasped.
In the mountain sanctuaries, ancient wards trembled for the first time in centuries.
In the undercities, where sunlight never reached, whispers slithered through stone corridors:
She has awakened.
The bond lives.
Find her.
By morning, Aelin was shaking.
Not with fear with restraint.
Kael noticed immediately.
"You're holding it back," he said.
She nodded, jaw clenched. "If I let it stretch too far, it's like opening a door I don't know how to close."
"And if you don't?"
"It keeps pushing," she said. "Like it's trying to grow roots."
Kael was quiet for a long moment.
Then: "We need answers."
She looked at him sharply. "From where?"
"There's someone," he said slowly. "Someone who might know what the mark really is."
Her expression hardened. "You've been holding out on me."
"I was hoping we'd never need him."
"That's not reassuring."
He exhaled. "He's called the Binder. Lives beyond the salt plains. Studies bonds old ones. Forbidden ones."
"Is he trustworthy?"
Kael met her gaze. "He's alive."
She sighed. "That bad, huh?"
"Worse."
They packed quickly and moved before the sun fully rose.
But they weren't fast enough.
The attack came without sound.
One moment the road was empty.
The next, the air folded.
Aelin barely had time to gasp before the ground beneath them fractured into sigils glowing, biting, alive. Chains of light snapped upward, wrapping around Kael's legs and yanking him down hard.
"Kael!" she screamed.
He hit the ground with a grunt, struggling as more bindings surged toward him.
Aelin reacted on instinct.
The shadows exploded outward.
Not wild precise.
They sliced through the sigils like blades, darkness screaming as it collided with magic not meant to be touched. Aelin stepped forward, eyes blazing, power rolling off her in waves that cracked the road beneath her feet.
"Show yourselves," she said.
They did.
Six figures emerged from the distortion cloaked, masked, each bearing the same silver crest etched into their armor.
The Council's mark.
One of them spoke. "Aelin of the Bonded Sigil. By decree of....."
He didn't finish.
Aelin lifted her hand.
The ground split open.
Shadows wrapped around the man, lifting him screaming into the air before slamming him back down unconscious.
The others froze.
Kael tore free from the broken chains, staring at her not in fear, but in awe.
Her voice was calm. Deadly.
"You don't get to decree anything," she said. "Not anymore."
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then one of them smiled beneath his mask.
"Good," he said. "That means the stories were true."
Aelin's chest tightened. "What stories?"
"That the bond doesn't just connect," he said softly. "It crowns."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"Fall back!" another shouted.
They vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared, leaving behind shattered sigils and the echo of something far worse than pursuit.
Aelin swayed.
Kael caught her before she fell.
"They know," she whispered. "They all know."
He held her tight, scanning the horizon. "Then we don't hide anymore."
She looked up at him. "What do we do?"
Kael's jaw set.
"We run straight into the truth," he said. "Before the world decides what to do with you."
The bond pulsed.
Not in warning.
In agreement.
And far beyond the road, beyond the plains, beyond the safety of ignorance,
Something ancient smiled.