NORA POV
We crested the moonlit ridge of the Veiled Wilds exactly where the spiral dance of portals faded into shadow. The air was thick with silver pollen, and every meadow blade shimmered like starlight captured in webbing.
Ahead stood a break in the fabric of our weave—a subtle shimmer, barely breathing, like a frozen ripple.
Valya knelt, brushing her fingers along the surface of an empty rune-etched obelisk that should have held a mirror-runed tablet. Now half-charred.
“That’s where it split,” she said. “Someone cut it deliberately.”
My pulse thundered. “They’re testing us.”
I stepped to the break and placed a trembling hand against the shimmer. Power hummed beneath—cold and probing. As our wards held, the spell-pulse reverberated through my bones.
“Someone’s trying to sever ou
