Kozlov tilted his head. "You would give yourself to the darkness? After all these years of trying to control it?""I would serve," Vane said. "As I have always served. The Obsidian is awake now. It needs a vessel. A conduit. Let me be that conduit."Kozlov was silent for a long moment. The torches flickered. The shadows pressed closer."You fear death," Kozlov said finally. "You always have. That's why you came to me in the first place. You want to live forever. You want to cheat the grave."Vane said nothing."Now you offer yourself to the Obsidian not out of loyalty, not out of devotion, but out of fear. Fear of what I will do to you if you return empty-handed. Fear of the iron rot spreading through your veins. Fear of the darkness that's been whispering to you in your sleep."Vane's hands trembled."I am not afraid," he lied.Kozlov laughed—a cold, hollow sound. "You are afraid. And that's why I'm going to accept your offer."Vane looked up, surprise flickering across his features.

The estate loomed before them, dark against the bruised sky. Its windows were dark, its grounds silent—but Wilfreda could feel the wards humming beneath the soil, weak but holding. The drive from the clinic had been tense, every shadow a potential threat, every sound a possible ambush. But they had made it.Gerald killed the engine and scanned the tree line. "I don't see any movement.""Doesn't mean they're not there," Chance said, helping Harry out of the back seat. The pendant hung around Harry's neck, dark and quiet, but every few minutes it flickered with a pulse of golden light—a heartbeat that wasn't his own.Steven leaned on Brenda as he climbed out. He was still weak, still pale, but he had refused to stay behind. "The library," he said. "Wilfreda said the entrance is in the library."Wilfreda led them through the front doors, across the marble foyer, past the great hall where she had once played as a child—before she knew she was an O'Connor, before she knew about the Obsidi

Wilfreda climbed the stairs from the hall of portraits with a steadiness that hadn't been there before. Her footsteps were measured, confident, each one pressing into the stone as if she weighed twice what she had an hour ago. But it wasn't her body that had changed. It was something deeper.She emerged into the library, and the family fell silent.Gerald, who had been cleaning his shotgun at the table, looked up and froze. The gun slipped from his hands, clattering against the floor. He didn't reach for it.Priya and Janelle stood together by the window, their arms wrapped around each other. Janelle's mouth opened, then closed. No words came.Marta, who had been sitting with Harry, rose slowly to her feet. Her weathered face was wet with tears—not of sorrow, but of recognition. She had seen this before. She had seen her own mother emerge from that same staircase, transformed, radiant, terrible."Wilfreda," Marta whispered.Wilfreda crossed the room and took her aunt's hands. "I saw h

The estate gates shuddered.Gerald saw them first—a wall of figures emerging from the treeline, their movements jerky and wrong, like puppets with tangled strings. They wore the clothes of the dead: tattered suits, faded uniforms, rotted dresses. Some had been dead for days. Others for decades. The Obsidian had pulled them from their graves, filled their hollow bones with darkness, and sent them to destroy the living."Hundreds," Gerald muttered, raising his shotgun. "Maybe more."Janelle stood at the window beside him. "They were people once.""They were," Gerald agreed. "They're not anymore."***In the library, Wilfreda sat cross-legged on the floor, her hands resting on her knees, her eyes closed. The golden light behind her lids pulsed like a heartbeat—but it was faltering. Flickering.The daughters were screaming.A thousand years of grief poured through her: Brigid watching her husband burn at the stake. Mercy climbing the scaffold, her babies crying in the crowd. Aisling hold

Chance sat on the edge of his bed, the phone pressed to his ear, Susan's voice a distant hum of concern. He tried to form words, but they tangled on his tongue. How could he explain? How could he tell her that he'd dreamed a war, a siege, a darkness that swallowed the sky? That he'd watched people die—people who were, in this world, alive and well and probably making breakfast downstairs?"Chance?" Susan's voice sharpened. "You're scaring me.""I'm sorry." He rubbed his eyes. The motion sent a spike of pain through his skull. "I didn't sleep well. Fever dreams. I shouldn't have called.""Tell me what you dreamed."He hesitated. "You wouldn't believe me.""Try me."Chance took a breath. The words felt like stones in his throat. "There was a man named Kozlov. He was hunting my family. There was another man—Vane—who served him. They wanted to wake the Obsidian." He paused. "And Wilfreda, she had power. Light. She could fight the darkness."Susan was silent for a long moment. "That's...