Chapter 71 The Ones Who Answered
Kael was going crazy, his Lina was gone.
Not missing. Simply Gone. She was in his arms and suddenly she was nowhere to be found.
The distinction mattered more than anyone wanted to admit.
The chamber where she had vanished still reeked of disrupted magic — sharp, metallic, wrong. Wards lay twisted in on themselves, half-burned sigils etched into the stone floor like scars. Healers hovered uselessly at the edges, murmuring prayers to the Moon Goddess that did not soothe anyone.
Kael stood at the center of it all, staring at the empty space where she had been.
No blood.
No trace.
No direction.
“She didn’t fall through,” Maera said quietly. “She was taken.”
Kael turned on her, eyes blazing. “By what?”
Maera didn’t answer immediately.
Because the Veil had not torn.
It had responded. They didnt know what it had responded to but the trace of the magic used could not lie.
The witches worked fast.
There was no council vote. No debate.
This was not politics.
This was retrieval.
They formed a circle in the outer courtyard — not the standing stones, not yet. This spell was not about power. It was about memory.
“Anchor to the first time you knew you loved her,” Maera instructed. “Not to her blood. Not to her magic. To the first real feelings..”
Hands pressed to earth.
Names whispered — not Lina’s, but the names of the land itself.
Old paths. Old scars.
The ground shuddered faintly.
Then the pull came.
Strong.
Directional. A map was created in the air by mist that just appeared out of nowhere.
Maera gasped. “Lets go.”
Kael didn’t wait.
They rode hard.
The forest changed as they approached.
Mist crept low between the trees at first — thin, silver, deceptively gentle. Then thicker. Denser. Sound dulled. Hooves struck earth that no longer echoed.
No birds fled.
No animals watched.
The forest had gone still in the way prey does just before something catastrophic happens.
“This wasn’t here before,” Yselle whispered.
Maera’s jaw was set tight. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Lights flickered within the mist.
Not torches.
Not fire.
Cold glimmers, pulsing slowly — like breath.
Kael’s wolf snarled low in his chest.
They dismounted when the path ended.
And there she was. Lina stood at the center of the clearing.
Exactly where she had been found the first time.
Her feet were bare. Her hair loose around her shoulders. The black mark beneath her skin glowed faintly now, branching delicately across her chest like veins of shadowed glass.
She did not turn when they approached.
Her gaze was fixed on the mist.
Waiting.
Kael’s breath hitched. “Lina.”
She didn’t react.
“Lina,” he said again, softer.
This time, she tilted her head slightly — as if listening to something just beyond hearing.
Maera stepped forward carefully. “Child… can you hear us?”
“Yes,” Lina replied calmly.
The word sent a chill through them.
Kael reached her side in three strides, hands gripping her shoulders. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
She blinked at him then, slowly. “You came.”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “We came.”
She looked back at the mist. “I knew you would.”
Maera’s heart pounded. “Why are you here?”
Lina’s brow furrowed faintly, confusion flickering — not fear.
“This is where I crossed,” she said. “They told me to wait.”
“Who told you?” Kael demanded.
She hesitated. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
The lights in the mist pulsed brighter.
“They feel close,” Lina whispered. “I dont know who they are but they all know me.”
Every witch in the clearing stiffened.
“How do they know you?” Yselle echoed.
“We are about to find out,” Lina said simply. “I can feel them near.”
Maera stepped forward sharply. “Lina, you must move away from—”
The ground slammed.
Not exploded.
Collapsed inward.
A deafening impact ripped through the clearing, throwing witches and warriors alike backward as if struck by an invisible wave. Bodies hit trees. Spells shattered mid-cast.
Kael was hurled across the ground.
Everyone was.
Except Lina.
She stood untouched at the center of it all, hair lifting in a wind that did not exist, the mark over her heart blazing black.
The mist roared.
Then—
It burst.
Not outward.
Apart.
Light tore through the fog in blinding shards as the forest screamed back into sound. Birds erupted from trees. Wind slammed through the clearing.
And from the thinning mist—
Figures emerged.
Men.
Women.
Valerians.
They stumbled forward in small groups, blinking against the sudden clarity, hands clutching at one another as if steadying themselves after a long fall.
Some laughed softly.
Some wept.
Some simply stood there, breathing.
Alive.
Kael pushed himself up, disbelief choking him.
“They’re… walking out,” someone whispered.
Lina turned toward them, eyes shining.
“I told you,” she said softly. “Ti knew someone was coming, I just didn't know it was my people.”
The Valerians looked around, confused but calm, their expressions oddly serene.
Too serene.
Maera felt it immediately — the hollow where something should have been.
And she knew, with bone-deep certainty, that the world had just crossed a line it could never step back from.