Chapter 35. The Thorn Pact

The fire was not built for warmth. Its core glowed with skeletal embers, fed on splintered bonewood and thorn-splucked thistle—branches so dry they shattered with a sharp crack like a war horn’s call. Flames curled upward in jagged tongues, casting ragged shadows that danced across scorched earth. The smoke poured out in heavy coils of silver and charcoal, hanging low as though the ancient oaks themselves leaned in to inhale its acrid perfume before releasing it again.

They stood at the rim of Thornroot’s heart—a ruined grove where trees, blackened and knotted by time and conflict, arched overhead in twisted arches. Ash carpeted the ground; the air tasted of soot and old blood. At the center of this ruin, Aeryn lingered motionless beneath a midnight hood, the firelight flickering across her face and leaving her eyes half-hidden in shadow.

No mandate had summoned this council—only necessity. From the darkness stepped Vexa first: her cloak trailing a fine dusting of ash, e