Henry paced furiously across the chamber, his breath short and ragged. Panic flickered in his eyes like a trapped animal, darting from shadow to shadow.
"What are we going to do?" he asked, voice cracking, strained. "What if she finds them first? What if—"
A sharp silence cut through his words like a blade.
Behind him, a stone table emerged from the cave floor, rising with a soundless grace as if summoned by thought alone. Mashahl walked slowly to it and sat, resting his chin on his right hand, his veiled face turned toward Henry. He watched with the stillness of a predator sizing up its prey, utterly calm, utterly terrifying.
"Enough," Mashahl said, his voice low but commanding, each syllable a heavy stone. "Your bubbling won't solve a problem."
Henry stopped mid-step, swallowed hard, a visible knot in his throat, and bowed his head quickly. "Yes, master."
He stood stiffly in place, silent and waiting, his posture straight like a soldier awaiting command. Only moments ago, he had allowed himself to speak with a near-equal tone, a forgotten intimacy. But now, with the danger looming closer, he remembered the truth—Mashahl was not merely a mentor. He was a force. A master to be feared. And above all, obeyed.
Mashahl's gaze remained on him, unblinking, unwavering. He was thinking, calculating, his thoughts moving with an unseen, dangerous speed. And Henry knew that when Mashahl fell silent like this, when that profound stillness descended, something was building. Something terrible.
Yet beneath the master's calm, Henry sensed something else—something unusual.
Dread.
They had spoken in hushed voices about the Keeper before—about the woman whose power could bend space and memory itself. Why she bore the title 'Keeper,' no one truly knew, only that she was bound to an ancient pact. But those who survived encounters with her never questioned it. They simply bowed to the chilling stories. Even Mashahl had once fled from her.
Henry remembered that day clearly: a confrontation had erupted in a valley of bones, and with only the whisper of her power, the Keeper had cracked the ground beneath their feet, shattering their illusions like glass. Mashahl had survived, yes, but only because he had run. Days later, the woman had found their hideout and demanded something—something valuable, something they could not afford to lose. And Mashahl, against all odds, against all his known nature, had given it to her.
She was no myth. She was a storm dressed in human form.
After what seemed like fifteen long, agonizing minutes of silence, Mashahl finally raised his head, his gaze now distant, focused on something unseen.
"Locate those two younglings," he said, his voice calm, yet with a faint, chilling trace of urgency that hadn't been there before. "See how far they've come. Use their talismans."
Henry stepped forward. Mashahl reached into the deep folds of his robes and retrieved a device—smooth, black obsidian, etched with faint, glowing golden veins. It pulsed faintly, humming with ancient, barely contained energy.
Henry took it with trembling hands. The talisman around his own neck responded immediately, pulsing once with a soft, sympathetic glow.
He closed his eyes, focusing.
Immediately, threads of energy unfurled from the device like strands of a vast, invisible web, stretching across the ether. He was connected now—tethered to the invisible lines that linked the talismans to their bearers, reaching out through the depths of the earth.
"Canya," he murmured, the name a whisper on his lips. "I can feel her."
His face twisted into a deep frown, a grimace of concern.
"She's in pain," he added, his voice strained. "Something's wrong. She's suffering."
Mashahl leaned forward slightly, his stillness now rigid. "And Allan?"
Henry's brows furrowed, a vein throbbing in his temple. He concentrated, trying to follow the thread that should have belonged to Allan, pouring his will into the device.
"I..." he paused, visibly straining, his breath catching. "I can't feel him. It's like he's vanished."
Mashahl stood abruptly. The stone table vanished beneath him without a sound, dissolving back into the cave floor.
"What?" he said, his voice flat, dangerously devoid of emotion. "That's not possible. He wears the talisman. You should feel him."
"I know," Henry said, panic now creeping into his voice, making it tremble. "But it's like he stepped outside the weave—outside the pattern itself."
"Then force the pattern to reveal him!" Mashahl snapped, his voice echoing, sharp as cracking ice. "Do whatever it takes. I want them found. Now."
Henry nodded, sweat beading on his forehead, and focused all his energy into the task. The veins on the device glowed brighter, golden light coursing through the dark stone like lightning through storm clouds. His hands trembled as he strained, pushing, pulling, desperate to locate them both. The chamber darkened slightly, as if the immense energy itself was pulling shadows inward, feeding on the light.
Then—snap.
A backlash erupted from the device. A surge of uncontrolled, violent energy threw Henry backward, slamming him into the cold cave wall with bone-jarring force. The device clattered to the floor beside him, its once glowing golden veins now cracked and darkening, bleeding shadow.
Henry convulsed, once. His limbs jerked—and then fell still.
Mashahl didn't move at first. He stood there, eyes fixed on the man lying unconscious at his feet, his mind racing, processing this unprecedented failure.
He clenched his fists, the air around them humming with suppressed fury. All his plans, meticulously laid across decades, had depended on tracking the talismans, on their inescapable connection to the weave. If Allan had truly vanished, if his link had been severed, then something—or someone—had deliberately torn a hole in the pattern.
The Keeper.
Mashahl's eyes narrowed, burning with a cold, terrifying resolve. This was no longer a simple race for fragments. This was a battle of ideologies, of power, of wills. A direct challenge from a force he had believed he could avoid.
They were no longer the hunters.
They were being hunted.
And worse still—he could feel it now. The very rhythm of the weave was changing around them. The ancient pattern of fate and power, which he had manipulated for so long, was no longer responding the way it used to. Like something—someone—was rewriting it, one thread at a time.
He looked down at Henry, then at the cracked, inert device, and finally, up at the unyielding ceiling of the cave.
"Whatever you're doing, Allan," he muttered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, "I will find you. And I will undo it all."