Chapter 11 - The Circle Stirs

The first sign was silence.

Corvin Thorne stood in the dim chamber, listening to the absence as if it were speaking to him. Silas Trenwick had never missed a check-in.

He was due at dawn. Dawn had come and gone.

Still nothing.

Corvin folded his hands behind his back. “He has not reported,” he said quietly.

From the corner of the room, Maedra Coil stepped forward. The air cooled around her with every movement.

“Silas does not miss his marks,” she said.

“No,” Corvin replied. “He does not.”

A second thought followed, heavier than the first.

“Jason Hale has not returned to his handler either,” Corvin added. “Two absences. One mission.”

Maedra’s mouth curved slightly. “Then both men are gone.”

Robes whispered as Thalen Morvane moved out of the deeper shadows. “Silas reached Devonshire,” he said. “I felt the land shift yesterday. Only for a moment, but it was there.”

Maedra nodded once. “An old pulse. Something waking.”

“The wards at Rowanmere,” Thalen said. “They brushed against us.”

Corvin frowned. “Silas never had the blood to disturb them.”

“Which means someone else walked the grounds,” Thalen said. “Someone who could.”

Maedra’s eyes narrowed. “Aelwyn. Clean. Unbroken. It has been centuries since I felt resonance like that.”

Thalen’s expression sharpened. “Then she exists. Elowen’s hidden line. The wards would not wake for anyone else.”

Corvin stayed silent.

Maedra continued, “Rowanmere remembers its own. And the dead Aelwyn remember with it.”

“Silas’s failure isn’t the problem,” Thalen said. “The awakened wards are.”

Corvin’s voice cooled. “If the Heir is on the grounds, the Chronicle will speak to her.”

“And once it does, she will understand what Elowen buried,” Thalen said. “Knowledge is the only thing we cannot outrun.”

Maedra lowered her gaze. “We must take her before that happens.”

“Or before the land shelters her completely,” Thalen added.

Corvin turned toward the inner corridor. “We convene.”

Maedra and Thalen followed. Not out of obedience, but because no one took chances when the Chronicle was involved.

They entered the sanctum deep beneath the earth. The air was thick and still. Carved stone walls held old power close, the kind that dulled whispers and killed any device foolish enough to enter.

Corvin stepped in first. The room brightened a shade. Maedra entered. The room darkened again. Thalen sealed the door.

“The wards at Rowanmere awakened,” Corvin said. “Silas was present when they did.”

Maedra’s voice softened. “He walked into something older than all of us.”

“Someone with Aelwyn blood touched the land,” Thalen said. “The ground answered.”

“Pendragon blood commands,” Maedra murmured. “Aelwyn blood restores. Together, they create something rare.”

“Dangerous,” Corvin said.

“We have spent centuries twisting what remains of old magic,” Maedra said. “Aelwyn purity rejects us.”

“The Chronicle will not hide from her,” Thalen added. “It will guide her.”

“And with guidance,” Maedra said quietly, “she becomes capable of undoing everything we built.”

Corvin’s expression sharpened. “Then we move now.”

“We cannot breach Rowanmere,” Thalen warned. “Not with the Guardian beside her.”

“Then we force her out,” Maedra replied.

A tremor rolled through the stone floor. Deliberate. Cold.

From the center of the sanctum, a pedestal rose, its spiraled grooves catching what little light the room offered.

“We need something the wards will not reject,” Thalen said. “Everything else has broken against the land,” Maedra added. “Even our strongest constructs.”

“Not a creature of the land,” Maedra said. “Not a beast of magic,” Thalen added.

Corvin finished the thought. “Something between.”

Thalen smiled faintly. “A Hollowborn.”

Maedra’s eyes glimmered. “Human-shaped. A mind that can follow orders. Empty enough to pass unnoticed.”

“The wards will not see it,” Corvin said. “And Timothy cannot sense what isn’t truly alive,” Maedra added.

Thalen knelt by the pedestal and placed his palms on the grooves. The stone pulsed weakly in response.

“A Hollowborn cannot be summoned,” he said. “It must be shaped. Three days for the shell. Longer if the essence fights us.”

“And we need something of the girl,” Maedra said. “Something she touched. Only then will it find her.”

Corvin asked, “And the ritual?”

“Three nights,” Thalen replied. “Dusk to dawn. Once begun, it cannot be stopped.”

“And if it fails?” Maedra asked.

“The shell collapses,” Thalen said. “And it takes us with it.”

Corvin didn’t blink. “Then we begin.”

They rose. The sanctum dimmed.

Miles away in London, a townhouse stood quiet. Its wards flickered weakly now, hollow without Timothy or the girl present.

A shadow stepped inside.

No body remained. No blood. No Silas.

But something else waited on a low table.

Something she had touched. Something that held the faint warmth of her presence.

The figure lifted it and placed it into a satchel. It would be enough.

Below the earth, the spiraled stone shuddered.

Far across Devonshire, the wind shifted, as though the land sensed something false beginning to breathe.