Novels by Sammy

The forest had gone silent in a way that pressed against Kael’s ears.No birds. No insects, even in the wet undergrowth where they should have been loudest. No wind moving the branches overhead, though he could see them swaying faintly, as if responding to a breeze that existed everywhere except where he could feel it.“We’re being watched,” Lyra said quietly, not slowing her pace.“By who?”“I don’t know.” Her eyes moved between the trees, cataloguing shadows. “But we crossed an old boundary about a mile back. Something’s been keeping this place sealed off a long time.”The coordinates led them to a structure half-swallowed by roots and moss, stones stacked in a pattern too deliberate to be ruin — an old watchtower, maybe, or something older that had forgotten its original purpose. Inside, a fire pit still held warm coals. Fresh footprints tracked through the dust. And near the far wall, a scrap of dark fabric caught on broken stone.Kael crossed to it before he’d decided to move, fi

“Are you sure?” Lyra asked, staring at the phone in his hand like it might bite.“I know his voice.” Kael didn’t know how he knew it — twenty-one years without hearing it, and still something in his chest had recognized it instantly, the way a body remembers a room it was born in. “It’s him.”Lucian’s expression changed before either of them could say more — the color draining out of his composure, his head snapping toward the stairwell.“Everyone out. Now.”“Why?” Kael demanded.“Because they heard the call.” Lucian was already moving, pulling his people toward the exit. “That disturbance you caused sealing the door — it didn’t just close the chamber, Kael. It announced you to everyone listening.”The windows exploded before Kael understood what that meant.Glass sprayed inward in a shower of sparks, the lights dying all at once, and figures poured through the shattered frames — not Voss men, nothing like the calm professionals from before. These moved wrong, jerking between one posi

For a long moment, nobody in the chamber moved.“You know him,” Kael said finally, watching Lucian’s face for the crack he’d just seen appear there.Lucian didn’t answer right away.“You know that voice.”“Yes.” The word came out of him differently than anything else he’d said tonight — no calm underneath it, no calculation. Just the truth, plain and unwelcome.“Who is he?”“Someone who should have been dead.” Lucian’s eyes hadn’t left the stone door.Kael’s fury broke loose before he could stop it. “You knew my father. You’ve known this whole time and you let me chase shadows all night.” He stepped toward Lucian, mark blazing at his side. “What happened to him?”“He wasn’t imprisoned behind that door, Kael. I told you the truth.” Lucian’s voice steadied itself, though something underneath it stayed raw. “He was part of what built the seal. He gave something to make it hold. I won’t tell you what. Not yet.”“Why does everyone fear the Ravens?” Kael demanded. “Tell me that much. What a

The third heartbeat cracked the floor beneath them.Books avalanched off the shelves as the room lurched, dust and old paper raining down, a fissure splitting the stone floor in a jagged line that ran straight toward the far wall.“We have to get out,” Lyra shouted over the groan of settling stone.“No.” Kael was already moving toward the crack, toward whatever pulled at him from beneath it. “Whatever’s down there might be connected to my father.”“Your father isn’t worth dying for!”“You don’t know what he means to me.” The words came out rawer than he intended. “I don’t even know him. Twenty-one years, Lyra. I don’t even know his face.”She didn’t argue after that. She followed.The presence beneath them wasn’t a monster in any shape Kael understood — no claws, no eyes, nothing to point a fear at directly. It was pressure, ancient and enormous, the walls themselves seeming to lean toward it like plants toward light. The mark on his palm burned in time with each slow pulse of it, a r

“You knew,” Kael said, still catching his breath, the vision’s smoke and fire fading slower than it should have from his eyes.Lyra didn’t deny it. “I knew there was a possibility.”“How much?” His voice came out rawer than he wanted. “How much have you known about me this whole time?”“More than I told you.” She met his eyes steadily, no flinching, no apology dressing it up. “Less than you’re imagining right now.”“My mother lied to me. Lucian lied to me.” He laughed, short and humorless. “And now you’re telling me you’ve known things about me too. Why should I trust you?”“You shouldn’t.” She said it simply, without defending herself. “But you need me. That’s not the same thing, and I’m not going to pretend it is.”He wanted to be angrier at that answer. Somehow its honesty took the air out of most of his fury.“Tell me what you know,” he said instead. “All of it. No more pieces.”She studied him a moment, then nodded, like she’d decided something. “My family keeps records. Generati

He stepped out of the rain like the weather had simply agreed to part for him — unhurried, dressed too well for the storm, a calm settling over the street that had nothing to do with the wind dying down.“Who are you?” Kael’s voice shook with more anger than fear now.“Lucian Voss.” He said it plainly, without theater, like a man introducing himself at a dinner party. “You’ve been asking my family that question all night. I thought it was time to answer in person.”Lyra had gone rigid beside him. “Lucian.”“Vale.” He inclined his head to her, something old and complicated passing behind his eyes. “You’ve made an interesting choice tonight.”Kael didn’t let himself get distracted. “Did you kill my mother?”Lucian studied him a long moment before answering, and when he did, his voice was almost gentle. “If I had wanted your mother dead, Kael, she would have died thirteen years ago.” He let that sit. “Elara wasn’t running from my family alone. She was running from several bloodlines, all