Part 2-Chapter 7

Part 2-Chapter 7
~Kaisha~

I woke to the sound of the wards’ shaking. Not humming. Not whispering…no, this was flat-the-fuck-ass, shaking.

The walls weren’t vibrating softly, nothing like before, where faint light flickered across the ceiling, tracing jagged lines that pulsed in a rhythm that seemed almost natural.

For a moment, I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. My mind hovered somewhere between dream and memory, caught in the ghost of the cold wind, the stars, the distant voice that wasn’t a voice at all.
Then the wards flared again, sharp, bright, and the illusion shattered.

I pushed myself upright, heart pounding. The room felt too small, the air too charged, as if the magic was trying to warn me of something but hadn’t yet figured out how to speak.
“Not again,” I muttered, rubbing my temples.

At the soft sound behind me, I turned. Redakai sat in the chair beside my bed. Not lounging. Not sharpening weapons out of boredom. Just sitting there, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, eyes fixed on me like he’d been afraid I wouldn’t wake up.

As I stirred, he straightened and our gazes met. With a sigh that sounded almost like a breath of relief, he murmured, “You are awake.”

“That seems to be the trend,” I was trying for sarcasm, but I failed the mark as my voice came out thinner than I intended.

His eyes flickered, straying away from mine before refocusing. “The wards are reacting again. You feel it?”

I gave him a look, and laughed. “You mean the magnitude eight on the richter scale we’re expiring? It would be hard not to.”

Before he could respond, the door swung open and Corton burst in mid-sentence. “—I do not care what Dirk says, that thing is not following a natural—” He froze when he saw I was conscious. “Oh. You are up. Good. Less good is the whole house shaking like it is trying to cough up a demon.”

“Corton,” Redakai warned.

“What? It is!” Corton protested. “I nearly fell through a bookshelf…and for the record, it was not my fault this time.”

Syrus and Drayton appeared next. “The wards are misfiring,” Syrus said. “Outer sigils are bending, not breaking, but close.”

“Why?” I asked, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

Redakai stood at the same moment I did, as if anticipating I might collapse again. I didn’t. My legs were shaky but functional.

Syrus and Drayton exchanged a look with Corton, before Drayton answered. “Because whatever crossed the boundary line an hour ago? It crossed another one.”

My stomach dropped. “So it’s closer.”

Corton nodded grimly. “Close enough for the witches across town to start screaming about ancient omens and blood moons. One woman threw a jar at me. I was not even talking to her.”

Before I could process that, Dirk entered…and the mood in the room changed instantly.

He held a stack of rune-etched papers and a sigil that glowed faintly blue in his palm. His eyes flicked over me quickly, checking for signs of distress, then he nodded once. “We have a problem,” he muttered.

“Just one?” Corton quipped.

Dirk ignored him and turned to me. “How do you feel?”

“Like a tuning fork,” I replied. “The wards won’t shut up.”

Dirk winced. “Then it’s worse than I thought.”

Redakai stepped forward, voice low. “Explain. Now.”

Dirk lifted the glowing sigil. It pulsed once, hot, sharp and the walls responded, humming in a sympathetic echo. “This is the new reading from the second signature,” Dirk said. “It’s no longer moving along the pulse line.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

Dirk looked at me with an uncomfortable mixture of awe and dread. “Meaning it’s stopped tracking the magic you released last week.”

My blood went cold. “Then what is it tracking?”

“You,” he said simply.

Everything inside me tightened. Redakai swore under his breath, stepping closer as though proximity alone could stop this thing from getting any nearer.

Corton stared between us. “It locked onto her directly? How? She did not project anything.”

“That’s the alarming part,” Dirk replied. “She didn’t have to.”

Drayton crossed his arms, voice measured but tense. “The wards are reacting because Kaisha’s presence is now a beacon, not a ripple.”

My breath caught. “I didn’t do anything!”

“No one said you did,” Dirk assured gently. “Your magic did. On its own.”

I felt something twist in my chest, guilt, fear, anger, I wasn’t sure. But beneath it all…a faint throb, echoing the wards. The same rhythm I felt at dawn. The same pulse I tried to deny.
“Okay,” I whispered, “so it’s following me. What happens when it reaches the Manor?”

Silence and no one met my eyes.

“Out with it,” I demanded, sharper than I planned.

Dirk sighed. “It depends.”

“On what?” I growled.

“On whether it’s coming to claim, connect…or consume,” he hesitantly answered.

Redakai moved sharply. “Dirk—”

“She deserves the truth,” Dirk snapped. “If you want her blind, that’s your choice, but I won’t lie to her.”

Redakai looked like he wanted to break something. Possibly Dirk.

Quickly jumping off the bed, I stepped between them. “Enough. Tell me what I need to know.”

The wards shuddered again…hard. This time, I felt it inside my ribs. Fuck me!

A hot spike of pressure pushed outward from my sternum, and for a heartbeat, the runes on Dirk’s sigil flickered in sync with the pulse in my chest.

My breath hitched. “Oh—”

Redakai caught my elbow instantly. “Kaisha?”

“I don’t—” I gasped, clenching my fists. “I don’t think that was the wards.”

Dirk moved closer, eyes locked on my hands. “Do it again.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I cried.

He nodded once, then hissed, “Then let it happen.”

“Dirk,” Redakai growled again.

Dirk didn’t look away. “She’s channeling something. If we don’t understand what it is before the signature arrives, we’re dead.”

The pressure surged again, heat, light, something trembling under my skin like a distant storm trying to force its way through bone.

I inhaled sharply, and the lamps in the room flickered. Curtains snapped in a nonexistent wind. The floor groaned like it remembered an earthquake centuries old, and Redakai grabbed my shoulders. “Kaisha—look at me!”

I did. And the moment his eyes locked on mine… The pressure broke. The room steadied. The lamps stabilized. My heartbeat fell back into a rhythm that felt like mine again. I sagged, trembling. “What the hell was that?”

Dirk exhaled slowly. “That wasn’t you losing control.”

“What was it, then?” I gasped.

He swallowed. “That was the Manor responding to the convergence. Through you.”

“And that,” Syrus added quietly, “means the timeline just shortened.”

“Shortened?” I whispered.

“Whatever’s coming…” Dirk began.

“…will reach you sooner than we thought,” Redakai finished, jaw tight.

My stomach twisted. The room felt smaller, the air heavier.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Redakai didn’t hesitate. “We prepare,” he said. “And we stand between you and anything that comes through those borders.” His voice was quiet. Deadly. Unshakably certain, and for the first time since the attack on the river the fear in my chest eased: just a little.