Chapter 78 – The Second Half of the Prophecy

As they moved farther away from the ruin, the forest deepened again, but that depth no longer came only from darkness. The chamber that had opened below a moment ago, the prophecy rising from within the stone table, and the moment Elara’s blood touched that ancient hollow had changed the rest of the night as well. The wind had softened, but softness did not always mean relief. Sometimes, it only made it easier to hear what was approaching. Elara was the first to feel it. When the wound on her wrist began throbbing again, she understood that it was not caused by exhaustion alone. The blood she had left on the stone table had opened something. And what had opened was not only an old prophecy.

Before Rowan put it into words, he lifted his head twice and listened to the air. Kael, on the other hand, stopped the moment he caught the scent. "Someone found our trail," he said. His voice was low, but there was no doubt in it. Elara did not turn her head. Because she felt it too. It did not feel like the soldiers from the facility. Nor did it feel like Adrian’s cold intelligence in that room. It was thinner, more insidious. As if something was approaching that followed them not by footsteps, but by a pulse. The Moon Spirit stirred inside her. "Blood." Elara closed her eyes for a moment. Yes. What was tracking them was not the footprint they had left on the ground. It was the thing moving through her own body.

"They’re finding us not by scent, but by the mark," Elara said. Rowan turned to her at once. "What mark?" Elara looked at her wrist. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a wound beginning to dry, ringed by dark lines. But there was another layer inside. The magic she had thought was erased when she touched the stone table had only changed shape. "The facility’s chain didn’t leave," she said. "It just sank beneath the skin." Kael’s face hardened. "And you’re telling me this now." Elara looked at him. "I just realized it now too."

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