Chapter 12 · The Name Under His Name

My knees hit stone and stay there.

Blood runs between my fingers. Leon is down beside me, dragging in air like he’s just sprinted underwater. The barrier core didn’t vanish. It shattered. Blue crystal litters the floor, each shard pulsing against the dark.

And in the middle of the wreckage, on a pedestal that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago, a heart beats.

Slow. Wet. I feel every thump in my teeth.

Runes crawl over the muscle. Black letters twist across its left side, trying to tear free.

Karl Murray.

“What did you do?” My voice comes out raw.

Leon stares at his hand. The Wald crest ring he shoved into the core is gone. No silver. No burn. Just pale skin.

“It took it,” he says. “My contract. My future. All of it.”

“Can you stand?”

“Ask me after my lungs remember how.”

Footsteps strike the stairs.

I get up anyway and move in front of him. My legs shake, so I lock my knees and pray the black-robed figure won’t notice.

He stops at the bottom step.

He isn’t running. He isn’t melting into shadow.