Chapter 23 · The Hand Knows the Way

The core spoke a name and Marcus felt his stomach drop.

"Cassian."

Ayla's hand tightened on his wrist. Her fingers were ice-cold through the torn sleeve of his jacket. The rune in his palm pulsed once, twice, like a second heartbeat he didn't ask for. The air in the chamber tasted like metal and old snow.

"That's him," Marcus said. "That's the other Maker."

She didn't let go. "The one hunting you."

"Yeah."

The core hung in the center of the room, a fractured sphere of black glass and frozen light. Cracks ran through it like a spiderweb, and each crack leaked cold. Not winter cold. Worse. The kind that made bones brittle and lungs seize. The kind that said this world was already halfway gone.

Marcus pulled his hand free and stepped closer. The rune burned against his palm. It had been doing that since he'd torn it off Ayla's chest, back when she'd wrapped herself in death cloth and tried to feed herself to the damn thing. He'd stopped her. Barely.