Page 66 of Shattered Crown

“None of the others answered,” Thorne whispered. “I reached for centuries. Called. Pleaded. Nothing.”

“I was the only one who could return,” Elandor said. “But the spark that rekindled me came not from your grief. It came from your bond. The sword. The one who carries it.”

He tilted his head toward Silas, who stood in the distance with Diana, overseeing supplies.

“He's the bridge. You are the root. But only together can you bind what was broken.”

Thorne blinked hard. He remembered the old songs, the rituals in greenlight beneath boughs long turned to ash. He remembered Elandor's voice singing those songs. Teaching him to feel the land’s pain like his own.

He had been so certain that he was the last.

“Why didn't you come sooner?” Thorne asked.

“Because I was not strong enough,” Elandor said. “Not until now. Not until you made the forest stir again. It was your bond with him that opened the way.”

Thorne exhaled and stepped closer. His voice softened. “You were always the best at binding runes.”

Elandor smiled faintly. “You always overthought them.”

“You said runes were songs,” Thorne said. “I was never any good at music.”

“No,” Elandor said with a gleam in his eyes, “but you understood harmony.”

Nathaniel approached quietly, eyes sharp with cautious curiosity. He studied the newcomer for only a moment before bowing with quiet respect.

“Elandor,” Thorne said, his voice carrying to those nearby, “was once my elder. A spirit of the Second Bloom. A teacher. I thought him lost forever.”

“And now your equal,” Elandor said. “Perhaps even your student, depending on how this ends.”

Nathaniel stepped forward and offered him a satchel. “We’ve gathered quartz powder and river ash. Everything you’ll need.”

Elandor accepted it with a nod. “Good. Then we begin.”

He knelt beside one of the faded rune circles and brushed away the moss. As his fingers passed over the soil, a faint green glow followed in their wake. He didn’t draw the runes as a man would draw a map. He traced them like memories, as though coaxing them out of the ground.

Thorne stood watching, his chest tight.

“You tried to carry all of it alone,” Elandor said without looking up.

Thorne gave a dry laugh. “There wasn’t anyone left to help.”

“Until now.”

Thorne moved to help, using his connection to the earth to reshape the carved channels. As he worked, he felt the Shadowblight's attention turn toward them. Psychic pressure built at the edges of his consciousness, seeking entry points in his mental defenses.

You think this will end differently?The entity's voice slithered through his thoughts.He'll change beyond recognition. Your love will shatter against duty's demands.

Images flooded Thorne's mind: Silas transformed into something alien and cold, their bond severed by the ritual's requirements. He saw himself alone again, watching another love lost to forces beyond his control.

“No,” Thorne growled, pushing back with memories of his own. Every tender moment with Silas became a weapon: morning kisses in filtered sunlight, laughter shared over simple meals, the fierce joy of their reunion after separation. Love blazed through him like cleansing fire, burning away the entity's poisonous visions.

The psychic assault faltered, then withdrew. Thorne opened his eyes to find concerned faces watching him.

“It's testing our resolve,” he explained. “Trying to break us before we begin.”

As if summoned by his words, the air above the ritual circle shimmered. Forms coalesced from morning mist, taking shapes Thorne hadn't seen in centuries. Guardian spirits materialized, friends lost to the original betrayal now returned as witnesses or guides.

“Lysander?” Thorne whispered.

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