Jake Foreman stood over a shivering soldier as Commander Rask shoved him forward. “Fix him,” Rask snarled. “Or I swear I’ll toss you out with the corpses.”Jake’s hands trembled. “Commander, I—I just arrived. I don’t even know what he’s infected with.”“You’re the healer they dumped on me,” Rask snapped. “Figure it out.”The soldier on the cot convulsed, eyes rolling back. Veins bulged beneath his skin, dark and pulsing like something alive inside him.Jake swallowed. Hard. “This isn’t a normal plague,” he murmured.Rask’s fist hit the metal table with a crack. “Then use that pretty schooling the capital gave you. Before he blows.”Jake opened his mouth to respond, but froze instead. Because suddenly, something shifted. The world around him… dipped. Bent. Darkened.Threads of dim silver light crawled beneath the soldier’s skin, glowing faintly like veins made of moonlight.And wrapped around those veins were twisting shapes, shadows, almost like snakes, tightening, suffocating, chokin

Rain hammered the marsh like it was trying to drown the entire borderland. Mud clung to Jake’s boots as he backed away from the hooded woman, breath ragged and misting in the cold night air.He lifted his hands defensively. “Stay back.”She didn’t move.Her pale eyes glowed faintly beneath her hood, reflecting every flicker of lightning. “Jake,” she said calmly, “running won’t change what you are.”“I’m not Shadowborn,” he snapped. “I’m a healer. A normal healer.”“You saw life threads,” she replied. “You touched the shadow coils. You commanded them. That is not normal.”Jake’s heart pounded painfully. “It’s a hallucination. A breakdown. Stress. Anything else.”She tilted her head. “Then why did the shadows obey you?”“I don’t know!” Jake shouted, louder than he intended. “I don’t know what’s happening to me!”The woman stepped closer. Jake stepped back. She stopped exactly where he wanted her to. “Jake… the kingdom has been hunting your bloodline for two decades. Do you truly think w

Jake sprinted deeper into the Sanctum of Threads as the hunters’ screeches echoed off the stone behind him. His heart pounded violently, his breath sharp and ragged.Silver veins in the walls pulsed faster as he passed, reacting to his presence, guiding him, warning him, urging him onward.He stumbled into a circular chamber lit by a pale-blue glow leaking from cracks in the ceiling. “Please tell me there’s a door,” he gasped. There wasn’t.Instead, the circular room held a single object: A stone pedestal. On top of it, A sphere of swirling black mist. Jake backed up instantly. “Nope. No. Absolutely not. I’m not touching that.”The shadows around the sphere flickered. And answered him. “Come, Heir.”Jake’s skin crawled. “No thank you. Very much no thank you.”Behind him, Lyra shouted, “Jake! MOVE!”He turned, Lyra was fighting three hunters at once. Her blades flashed silver, slicing through the darkness like shards of moonlight.But the hunters were relentless, their bodies twisting

Cold rain pounded the earth as Jake and Lyra stepped out of the Sanctum. The horns kept sounding, three long, low blasts that vibrated through the swamp like a warning from the kingdom itself.Jake stiffened. “That’s definitely Rask.”Lyra nodded grimly. “He’s releasing the whole garrison.”Jake’s stomach knotted. “But… why send armed soldiers after me? I didn’t do anything!”Lyra gave him a pointed look. Jake sighed. “Okay, I did a little something.”“You threw a commander across a room,” she reminded.“He was going to chain me!”“And then your shadows attacked.”“Again, panic! Reflex! Magic hissy fit!”Lyra didn’t even blink. “You unleashed enough force to knock a horse down.”Jake threw up his hands. “Great. I’m terrifying and unemployed.”A second horn blasted, shorter, sharper. Lyra froze. “Jake… that signal means something else.”“What?”“They found blood.”Jake’s breath hitched. “Mine?”“No,” she said quietly. “Hunter blood.”Jake’s eyes widened. “Wait, Rask thinks I killed tha