Chapter Seventeen
Echoes in the Blood
The Keep was silent, unnervingly so.
Lyra paced the confines of the chamber beneath the Council’s great hall, the faint glow of the wards casting blue shadows across the stone walls. Kael lay on the low stone bed nearby, still recovering from the Harbinger’s psychic assault. His chest rose and fell, shallow and steady, but she could feel the pain running under his skin like fault lines ready to split.
She couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t rest.
Not with the mark on her abdomen still pulsing faintly. Not with the memory of Taran’s possessed voice whispering through her brother’s lips—You are the gate.
The child stirred again.
This time not in fear.
In warning.
A soft knock broke the silence.
Lyra turned, claws half-formed in her fingers, but Mira stepp
