Bound by Moonlight and Magic
Ember didn’t breathe—not in the way the living did.
Her chest didn’t rise, but the air around her trembled as if inhaling for her. The ink trailing from her fingers evaporated midair, dissolving into glyphs that melted into the bark of the Sigil Tree. Liora held her tightly, forehead pressed to Ember’s, willing warmth back into her bones.
“She’s not waking up,” Kael said quietly, though tension rippled through his voice like a snapped bowstring. “You said she would come back.”
“She did come back,” Thistle murmured. “But not all of her.”
The parchment at her feet had crumbled into ash. The ink had burned through the runes etched into the summoning circle. Everything about the ritual felt final. Closed.
But the sky above them still shimmered with a hairlin
