Page 44 of Shifting Hearts 1
I built this place. I carved the Brotherhood from the ashes of a war that nearly devoured us all. I gathered the forsaken, the broken, the hunted, and gave them purpose. I wrote the Code of Binding to protect what was left of our kind. I taught them discipline, loyalty, and sacrifice.
But somewhere along the way, the code became a cage.
They stopped protecting the wild, and they started fearing it. They hunted those who didn’t fit the mold. Silenced prophecy, exiled the gifted, and now they wanted to kill the one thing that could restore balance.
Raven.
She doesn’t just carry power. Sheispower. Unshaped, untamed, unclaimed by any law but fate. They see her as a threat because she doesn’t bow, because she doesn’t belong to them.
But she belongs to me, and I belong to her.
I look at the relics lining the walls; blades I forged, oaths I swore, names I buried. These men are my brothers. Some Iraised, some I bled beside, some I buried with my own hands. They are my family.
And I’m about to become their enemy.
Because Raven’s awakening didn’t just expose the prophecy.
It exposedme.
The Alpha who forgot what he was fighting for, the founder who let fear shape the future, the man who built a fortress and called it salvation, when all it did was keep the fire out.
I turn to her, and she’s watching me with eyes that glow like stormlight. She doesn’t know the full cost yet, but she will.
And when the Brotherhood comes, when they call me traitor, heretic, fool, I’ll stand between them and her.
Not because I hate them, but because I remember what love is supposed to protect.
I don't hate the Brotherhood. I love it. That’s what makes this betrayal so brutal. But love without truth is just another chain, and Raven is the key that breaks it.
TEN
Raven
The room feels alive.
Not in the way a place breathes with memory, but in the way it watches. The walls hum with old magic, and the air tastes like stormlight and ash. I step forward, and the vault responds. A panel slides open, revealing folded garments; soft black linen, a tunic stitched with silver thread, and trousers reinforced with leather at the knees. Functional. Elegant. Like it knew exactly what I’d need.
I dress slowly, reverently. The fabric molds to my skin like it’s been waiting for me. When I fasten the last clasp, the mirror across the room flickers, runes igniting in its surface like a heartbeat.
Then the armor reveals itself.
Obsidian plates, etched with symbols I don’t understand but somehow feel. A breastplate that pulses faintly when I touch it. Gauntlets that whisper my name. The moment I lift the chestpiece, the runes flare brighter, and the room stills.
I hesitate.
Kieran steps beside me, silent as shadow. “It won’t hurt you,” he says. “It was made for you.”
I glance at him. “How could it be? They didn’t even want me to exist.”
“They didn’t,” he agrees. “But the old magic did, the prophecy did. The armor doesn’t serve the Brotherhood, it serves the bloodline, and you are its heir.”
I slide the breastplate into place. It locks with a soft hiss, like a sigh of recognition. Gauntlets follow, then boots, then shoulder guards. Each piece clicks into place like a memory returning.
When I’m finished, I don’t recognize myself.
But the room does, and so does Kieran.
“You look like a storm,” he says quietly. “Like the reckoning they tried to bury.”
