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"I should've come sooner."
"You came. That's enough."
She turned and went up the passage. The footsteps were quieter on the way up than they had been on the way down. Idonea stood alone in the chamber for some moments after they had faded. Her own hands had gone steady.
Idonea pulled her dagger free from its sheath, its weight familiar and cold in her palm. She was so tired of inaction, of being prey. If she was going to survive, she had to choose the hunter’s path.
She turned her left wrist upward and pressed the dagger's point to her skin. The pain was precise and unyielding. Blood welled in a thin crimson line, bright and hot and willing.
Idonea exhaled once, steadying her pulse.
From the pouch at her belt, she took a pinch of grey ash, a scatter of bone dust, and a grainy pinch of salt. Blood alone could call, but Riven work required anchoring. Without stabilisers, the ritual could unravel the caster’s mind before it found its mark. She pressed the ash to the fresh cut. The wound sizzled as the Current stirred. Then she added the bone dust, letting it cling to the blood, binding memory to intent. Lastly, she sprinkled the salt. The grain struck the blood and flared, a sharp spark of red-white light.
The ritual took.
A bloodthread rose from her wrist, thin as a hair and glowing with a pulsing red luminescence. It beat in perfect time with her heart. A lattice of delicate geometric lines unfolded around it, spiralling outward; a tracker’s weave, old and unkind and precise.
A ripple of cold passed through her bones. There was no turning back now.
She wrapped her wrist tightly with cloth, drew her cloak close around her shoulders, and slipped out the terrace house’s back door. The Templars, summoned by the supper bell, barely looked her way. Their distraction was the only opening she needed.
Moments later, the forest swallowed her whole. The snow gave under her boots as she walked. The air bit with winter’s teeth. The bloodthread floated ahead of her like a living ember dragged through the dark, weaving through the trees with purpose. Each breath left a pale plume trailing behind her.
The thread tugged sharply. Idonea followed.
Her ribs throbbed, wrist stung, and the ritual pulled at her blood with each step, but she pushed deeper into the frigid woods. Trees creaked under their burdens of snow.
A feminine voice drifted through the trees.
Idonea crouched low in the underbrush. She hadn’t expected to find Elzhbeta in the middle of the woods with nothing around. It didn’t seem to fit. She'd expected her at the veil tear.
She edged forward silently.
Elzhbeta knelt within a ring of sigils carved into the frozen earth. Her palms were spread, fingers trembling. But her palms were sealed. So, it wasn’t magic. Yet her lips moved in hushed, fervent words.
Then a second voice spoke.
Low, distorted, vast. It didn't belong in the human world. It was a rumble that rattled her bones. “The relic is almost ready. Why do you bother me so? Speak.”
Her blood ran cold. It must’ve been Vinea. He wasn’t fully there. His presence was stretched thin, manifested only through the sigils. But even his echo was enough to foul the air with the taste of iron and ash.
Elzhbeta bowed her head lower. “A witch hunts for your relic.”
The daemon’s chuckle was a sound like stone grinding against stone. “You fool.”
Idonea’s chest tightened. She wasn't getting a better chance than this.
She flexed her hand. The cut on her wrist opened again, willingly, and the Current came up her arm to meet the blood the way it always did.
Three shards. Thin as needles, brittle as glass; she'd never been able to hold them long. She flicked her wrist and they screamed across the clearing.
Elzhbeta's palms came up before her head did.
The shards shattered before they reached her. As the red sparks died in the snow, Idonea struck upon a sudden truth: she'd never seen Elzhbeta work magic before.
The daemon's voice changed register. "Indeed, a fool." Then the pressure of him was gone, and the clearing was only a clearing, and the two of them in it.
Elzhbeta rose without hurry. "So," she said. "Now what."
