Chapter 40: Bloodroot and Bone

Chapter 40: Bloodroot and Bone
The wind was sharp as blades when they crossed into the Eastern Blight.

What was once the thriving territory of the Night Pack had long since withered into something unrecognizable. The trees were skeletal, their bark blackened and peeling like old scabs. The sky hung low and bruised. Even the air felt wrong—too still, too cold. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

Alyra pulled her hood tighter around her face, her silver eyes scanning the woods.

The earth here didn’t just die. It had been cursed. Saturated with dark magic and something worse: hate that had rotted so deep into the land, it had changed the soil itself.

“This is where she’s hiding?” she asked, voice quiet.

Kaelan, mounted beside her, nodded. “If I were trying to build a nest of shadows, this is where I’d do it.”

Eric rode up on the other side. “The sorcerer’s energy trails through here. Faint, but it’s there.”

Behind them, a unit of elite warriors kept formation. None spoke.

Even the birds had gone silent.

They dismounted near a collapsed stone altar covered in bloodroot vines and broken bones. The stone pulsed faintly with old enchantments, most of them fractured and leaking raw energy like open wounds.

Sarya crouched near the ruins, her fingertips glowing faintly as she traced the sigils with care.

“This was once sacred,” she murmured. “A bond site. Old magic. A place where oaths were made…and sometimes broken.”

Kaelan scanned the area. “Can you track the tether from here?”

“I can do more than that,” Sarya said. “I can burn it clean.”

She stood, brushing dirt from her hands. “But it will hurt.”

Alyra stepped forward. “I can handle pain.”

Sarya’s sharp gaze met hers. “Not this kind. This isn’t physical. This is spiritual unraveling. Like pulling a hook out of your soul. You have to be the one to do it. I can only guide the flame.”

Alyra nodded. “Then guide me.”

They cleared a space near the altar, forming a protective circle marked with salt, bloodroot, and bone ash. Kaelan stayed just outside, tense and ready, while Sarya and Alyra stepped inside.

“Sit,” Sarya instructed.

Alyra lowered herself into the center of the circle. Her heart beat fast, her breath shallow, but her eyes were clear.

“I’ll use the bond as a channel,” Sarya said. “It will hurt, and it will tempt you. Jessica's magic is poison disguised as power. It will offer you comfort. Control. A lie you want to believe. Don’t accept it.”

Alyra nodded once.

Sarya placed her hands on Alyra’s shoulders.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “Now find the thread.”

Alyra exhaled.

She reached inward, past her heartbeat, past the warmth of Kaelan’s bond pulsing at the base of her spine.

And there it was.

A second thread.

Cold. Slick. Like an oil-covered rope stretching through her ribcage, anchored in rot and resentment. It twisted around her soul—not wrapped tight, but wrapped deeply. Like a blade left to fester in a wound.

She gritted her teeth and grabbed hold.

The moment she touched it, her body arched.

Pain flared white behind her eyes. Images flickered: Jessica’s face, the forest burning, Kaelan falling to his knees. Lies. She knew they were lies. But they felt real. They felt like futures.

Then came the whisper.

“You’re not strong enough. Not without me.”

Alyra gasped. The tether pulsed harder.

“Let go,” it coaxed. “Let me guide you. Let me show you what it feels like to matter without him.”

She clamped her mental hands tighter, sweat beading on her brow.

“No,” she said aloud. “You don’t get to live in me.”

The tether convulsed.

A scream tore from Alyra’s throat; not of fear, but of fury. The magic inside her surged, silver and wild. The Flame responded, rushing up like a tide of molten light. The tether hissed, fought, writhed—

Then split.

A final crack of invisible force echoed outward.

Alyra collapsed forward, chest heaving, hair clinging to her damp cheeks.

Kaelan was at her side in an instant, hauling her into his arms.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “It’s gone. I cut it.”

Sarya looked pale, but relieved. “She’ll know. The sorcerer will feel the backlash. We won’t get another surprise like this.”

“Let her come again,” Kaelan growled. “She won’t walk away next time.”

They returned to the castle by twilight, their group quieter, focused. Alyra spent the evening in the war chamber, poring over maps, refining their defenses, and reviewing Jessica’s last known rogue positions.

But later, in the dark of their chambers, Alyra sat at the window again.

She felt lighter. But she also felt watched.

Kaelan came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back into the warmth of his chest.

“You should be resting,” he said.

“I should be doing a lot of things.”

He chuckled into her neck. “Like not cutting soul-bonds out of your chest?”

She hummed. “Like telling you how much it meant to hear your voice through that pain. I couldn’t see you. But I felt you. Like a lighthouse in a storm.”

Kaelan pressed his lips to the crown of her head.

“I’ll always be that,” he said. “Even if the storm turns into a war.”

Far from the castle, Jessica stood at the edge of the ritual circle, her breath shallow, her eyes wide.

The tether had snapped.

The backlash had nearly knocked her unconscious.

The sorcerer bled from one nostril, kneeling beside her, panting.

“She cut it,” he rasped. “She woke something to do it.”

Jessica’s hand trembled. “She wasn’t supposed to break it. Not yet.”

The sorcerer looked up, fear tightening his face. “She’s growing faster than we anticipated.”

Jessica’s gaze darkened. “Then we change the plan. We don’t wait.”

She turned to the shadows and drew her dagger, pressing its tip into her palm until blood welled up.

“Prepare the spell,” she said coldly. “We won’t wait for her to come to us.”

The sorcerer bowed. “It will cost you.”

Jessica’s smile was venom.

“Let it.”