Chapter 75 Chapter Seventy-Five
They bolted.
Branches whipped at Julian’s face as they tore through the undergrowth, boots pounding over roots and stone. The forest exploded into motion behind them.
The sentinel charged.
Fast—far too fast.
Its footsteps weren’t heavy; they were wrong, a rapid skittering thud that gained ground with terrifying ease. Julian risked a glance over his shoulder and immediately regretted it.
The sentinel was right there.
Talons swung forward, blades of bone slicing the air inches from Julian’s head. He ducked instinctively, the wind of the strike ripping past his neck.
“Fuck—!” Jace gasped.
A second presence surged from the shadows to their left.
Julian barely had time to shout before another sentinel burst from the brush, lunging sideways, jaws snapping shut where Jace’s shoulder had been a heartbeat earlier.
They veered hard, barely clearing it as claws shredded bark and gravel behind them.
Two.
At least two.
Julian’s wolf roared inside him, furious and desperate.
Shift.
The word slammed through the mindlink, sharp and absolute.
Now. Don’t hesitate.
He didn’t have to tell Jace twice.
They ripped their packs from their shoulders mid-stride, hands moving on pure instinct. The forest blurred.
Bones snapped.
Muscle surged.
Fur tore free as the shift crashed through them violently and fast—wolves hitting the ground where men had been. Julian caught his pack in his jaws on instinct, weight familiar even as his body changed.
Jace did the same beside him.
They hit the forest floor running.
Paws thundered over earth, faster now—but still not fast enough.
The sentinels howled.
The sound wasn’t a howl meant for lungs. It tore through the trees like metal scraping stone, echoing from every direction at once.
Branches shattered as one sentinel leapt, crashing through the canopy above them, landing hard and rolling—then instantly back on its feet.
Relentless.
Julian pushed harder, lungs burning, legs screaming as they tore through the dark.
Then, a light appeared without warning.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
It pierced through the treeline ahead like a wound—brilliant, blinding, unnatural against the forest’s suffocating dark. It bled through the branches in jagged shards, pulsing as if it were alive, calling to them.
“That’s it!”
Julian sent through the mindlink, the words sharp with urgency. “That’s the way out.”
Jace didn’t respond—but Julian felt his agreement in the way he pushed harder, muscles screaming as they tore through roots and undergrowth.
Behind them, the sentinels were close. Too close.
Talons slashed at empty air inches from their heels. Teeth snapped—wet, gnashing sounds that vibrated through Julian’s skull. The ground shook beneath their charge, the forest itself recoiling as if it knew what hunted them.
The light grew brighter.
Closer.
Hope—raw and dangerous—flared in Julian’s chest.
Then the sentinels screamed.
The sound detonated through the forest—high and layered. It wasn’t just noise; it was pressure. It tore through Julian’s senses, turning the world into a blur of pain and distortion. His vision doubled. His balance faltered. His ears rang as if something inside his head had shattered.
“Stay with me!”
Julian shouted through the link, panic clawing up his spine.
“Jace—stay with me! Just a little farther!”
The edge of the forest loomed—branches thinning, the darkness breaking apart as the light poured in like fire.
They were almost there when something dropped from above.
Julian felt the third sentinel before he saw it—the displacement of air, the sudden shadow eclipsing the glow.
“JACE!” Julian screamed. “LOOK OUT—”
He didn’t see if Jace heard him.
Julian ducked instinctively, twisting hard as he launched forward with everything he had left. He crashed through the last wall of branches, splintering through brush and light—
—and hit the ground on the other side.
Hard.
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He tumbled, rolled, pain exploding through his limbs as his pack tore free from his jaws and skidded across unfamiliar earth.
Julian lay there for half a second—stunned, ringing, the world spinning.
Then instinct snapped him upright.
He shook his head violently, the haze peeling away just enough for clarity to slam into him like a blade.
The forest entrance loomed behind him.
Dark.
Silent.
Empty.
No Jace.
Julian’s heart dropped into his gut.
“JACE!” he roared, a growl ripping from his chest.
Without thinking—without hesitating—Julian turned and bolted straight back toward the treeline.
Back into the dark.
Branches clawed at his flanks as he barreled through, heart hammering, wolf howling with panic and rage—
—and then he saw them.
One of the sentinels had Jace.
Its jaws were locked around Jace’s hind leg, teeth sunk deep, dragging him backward through the roots like prey already claimed. Jace snarled and thrashed, claws raking desperately at the thing’s face, blood streaking his fur as he fought to stay upright.
The sentinel released Jace with a furious shriek as claws tore across its face—but it only reared back, talons flexing, jaws opening wide, rows of teeth gleaming as it prepared to finish him.
Julian launched.
The dagger Lazarus had given him was clenched between his wolf’s jaws—ancient, heavy, thrumming with something that did not belong to this world.
Midair, Julian shifted.
Bones snapped. Flesh twisted as he caught the dagger in his hand and drove it forward with everything he had.
Straight through the sentinel’s skull.
The sentinel shrieked—a sound layered with a thousand stolen voices—as it staggered back, convulsing violently. Its form flickered, unraveling—faces peeling over one another, bodies phasing in and out, every deception it had ever worn surfacing at once in a grotesque cascade.
The other sentinels recoiled.
They clutched at their heads, snarling in pain, movements faltering as if the wound echoed through them all.
Julian barely had time to breathe.
One lunged.
He shifted back into his wolf instinctively, muscles snapping into place as he pivoted on all fours. A slash of talons tore through the air where he’d been. Another strike followed—then another—relentless, furious, but slower now.
Weakened.
“MOVE!” Julian snarled through the link.
Jace didn’t hesitate.
Despite the limp, despite the blood matting his fur, Jace surged forward, grabbing his pack in his teeth and bolting toward the light. Julian fell in beside him, both of them running flat out as the sentinels gave chase—screeching, enraged, but no longer unstoppable.
The light burst through the trees.
They crashed through the final barrier and tumbled onto the other side, skidding hard across the ground.
The sentinels stopped at the treeline.
Snarling. Screaming.
But they did not follow.
Jace shifted first—hands trembling as he dropped to one knee. His breath came fast and shallow as he grabbed his leg.
Black veins were spreading from the bite.
Not blood.
Rot.
Void-dark, creeping beneath the skin like something alive.
Jace looked up at Julian, eyes wide with panic.
“…It got me,” his voice barely carried.
Then, gulping hard:
“I’m marked.”
Julian rushed forward, grabbing Jace’s discarded pack with his teeth and dragging it back to him.
“The potion,” Julian pushed through the link. “Drink it. Now.”
Jace tore the pack open, hands shaking as he dug through the inner pocket. The vial slipped free. He twisted the stopper and downed it in one rough swallow, choking as the bitter liquid burned its way down.
Both of them stared at his leg.
Nothing happened.
For a heartbeat—
two—
They both went rigid.
Then the black veins shuddered.
They began to recede, pulling back from the wound like ink soaking into parchment. The rot thinned, faded, unraveling until the skin beneath returned to its natural tone—unmarked. Whole.
Gone.
Julian sucked in a sharp breath. “Did it work?”
Jace blinked, then let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Yeah,” he said, a crooked smile breaking across his face. “Yeah… it did.”
He flexed his leg, testing it.
“It’s weird,” he added. “But it feels like a curse was lifted. Like a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying.”
Julian let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Remind me never to underestimate witches again.”
Jace only smiled as he stared ahead, breath still uneven, eyes narrowing as if his mind didn’t quite want to accept what it was seeing.
“…Is that the Gate?” he asked quietly.
“The Gate to the Fae realm?”
Julian didn’t answer right away.
He turned toward the light—and shifted.
Bones snapped, fur rippling back into skin as he rose into his human form. The air here felt charged—tight and humming, like the space between lightning and thunder.
The Gate wasn’t a doorway like he had imagined.
It was a rupture.
Reality itself had split open ahead of them, not torn violently—but parted, like the world had been peeled back by something with authority. The air warped inward, bending toward a vertical seam of blinding luminance that hovered just above the ground.
Light poured from it—not white, not gold—but something older. Prismatic. Alive. It shifted constantly, colors folding into one another in ways that made Julian’s eyes ache if he stared too long.
The ground beneath it was scorched smooth, stone fused into glass, veins of faintly glowing sigils etched deep into the earth—runic scars left by something powerful passing through again and again, over centuries.
No arch.
No frame.
Just a standing wound between worlds.
Julian let out a slow breath.
“Yeah,” he responded. “That’s it.”
He crossed the few steps to where his pack lay and crouched, pulling a pair of jeans free. As he stepped into them, his voice dropped—uncharacteristically poignant.
“Is it crazy,” he said, not looking back, “that after everything we just went through… facing Kaelani scares me the most?”
Behind him, fabric rustled as Jace dressed.
“No,” Jace answered without a second thought. “Makes sense, actually. Compared to that? Everything else was just… survival.”
Julian huffed faintly, tugging the jeans into place. He reached into his pack again and pulled out his shirt—but didn’t put it on right away.
He held it for a moment, fingers tightening in the fabric.
“I just want her to know,” he barely breathed the words. “What she means to me. That there isn’t a world—this one or any other—where I wouldn’t walk straight into hell for her.”
A pin-drop silence ensued.
Then Jace spoke—so softly it almost felt like a thought instead of sound.
“She’ll know.”
Julian closed his eyes briefly.
“I hope so.”
His gaze dropped to his side.
And that was the first time he acknowledged it.
Dark veins branched outward beneath his skin, spidering from the shallow gash along his ribs where the sentinel’s talons had struck. The blackness pulsed faintly, slow and deliberate—alive.
Creeping.
It wouldn’t be long before it reached something vital.
Before it reached his heart.
Julian pulled the shirt on without a word, covering the rot, sealing it away like a secret. He slung his pack over his shoulder, adjusted the straps, and finally turned to face Jace.
His expression was calm.
Resolved.
“If this is as far as I get,” he said evenly, “then I’m damn glad it was for her.”
He turned back toward the Gate.
And marched forward.