Page 16 of Eternal Thorns

When Rowan had gone, Thorne returned his attention to the manor. The shadow creatures had retreated for now, but he could feel them watching, waiting. Just as he was watching, though he refused to examine his own motivations too closely.

Through the pre-dawn darkness, the key's power pulsed steady as a heartbeat. Each wave called to something in his own magic, something that remembered creation rather thandestruction, trust rather than betrayal. The shadow creatures felt it too, responding to the echo of what they'd been before grief had twisted them into weapons.

The heart-tree called to him, its magic pulsing in time with the distant key. Thorne found himself drawn to its ancient trunk where the prophecy had been carved centuries ago. The marks in the bark had begun to glow with a faint silver light, each symbol awakening like stars at dusk.

His fingers traced the familiar words, and the forest's magic surged through him. Visions cascaded through his mind like leaves in a storm. Silas walking among his twilight flowers, the grove welcoming him as if he belonged there. The same scene twisted - the manor consumed by living shadows, grief made manifest devouring stone and wood. The images shifted faster, futures splitting and recombining around pivot points of choice not yet made.

But it was the reflections of himself that disturbed him most. He saw his own face in pools of memory, wearing expressions that felt like strangers' masks. Hope brightening his eyes as he shared ancient knowledge. Affection softening his features as he watched someone move through his grove. Trust - gods, trust of all things - as he extended his hand to another.

“No,” he snarled, pulling back. But the heart-tree's magic held him fast, insisting he witness what might be.

The visions blurred together, centering around the key and its bearer. Around choices that would echo through both their worlds. The prophecy marks pulsed brighter, as if singing in harmony with possibilities not seen in centuries.

A discordant note shattered his communion with the heart-tree. Something was wrong at the forest's edge, near where the manor's silhouette cut against the pre-dawn sky. Shadows gathered there, but not his shadows. Not the grief-born creatures he'd created and tried to destroy.

This darkness moved differently, more like oil than shadow, seeping through cracks in the ancient wards. The broken barriers weren't just responding to Ashworth blood - they were creating gaps where older, darker things could slip through.

Thorne sent his awareness racing toward the disturbance. In that liminal space between night and day, he caught a glimpse of another figure watching the manor. Not one of his shadow creatures with their star-filled forms, but something that seemed made of living darkness. Something that remembered the first betrayal, the first breaking, the first price paid.

Before he could investigate further, the figure vanished. But its malevolent anticipation lingered like frost on autumn leaves. This was no simple shadow-born entity, but something that had waited centuries for these precise circumstances.

He realized how narrow his focus had been. He'd been so fixated on the threat Silas might pose that he'd missed signs of a greater danger. The prophecy hadn't specified which ancient powers would wake when an Ashworth returned.

The first rays of dawn touched the forest canopy, making his twilight flowers close their petals. Morning light painted the manor in shades of gold, but Thorne's attention remained fixed on the places where foreign darkness had gathered.

He'd intended to test Silas's intentions, to prove him either different from his ancestor or exactly the same. But older magics were stirring, powers that had been set in motion long before this night. The Elder Willow knew many things, but even she didn't remember the very first betrayal - the one that had created the need for keys and barriers in the first place.

His burns pulsed once, sharply, as if the key was responding to his realization. The shadow creatures he'd created drifted closer, drawn not just by power but by the possibility of transformation. Of returning to what they'd been before grief had shaped them.

“Very well,” Thorne said to the awakening forest. “If we're playing with older magics, let's see what truths they reveal.”

He would still test Silas, but not with threats and ultimatums. Some choices had to be made freely, just as some knowledge had to be discovered rather than given. The young Ashworth carried one half of an ancient power. It was time to see if he could do what his ancestor could not - recognize the responsibility that came with such gifts.

The heart-tree's prophecy marks faded back to normal, but Thorne had seen enough. As dawn fully claimed the sky, he began making new preparations. Let the council think he meant to drive Silas away. Let them believe his interest lay solely in revenge.

The truth was both simpler and infinitely more complex. Just as the key recognized both master and thief, some choices could lead to either salvation or destruction. The trick was knowing which path to illuminate, and which to let souls discover on their own.

Thorne touched his spectral burns one last time, feeling how they resonated with the distant key. Then he set about laying a different kind of trap - one built not of threats, but of revelations.

After all, if darker powers were rising, perhaps it was time to remember what the keys had been forged for in the first place. Not just to bridge worlds, but to heal the wounds that kept them apart.

6

THE WITCH

Sunlight crept through frost-etched windows, turning Silas's bedroom into something from a winter fairy tale. If fairy tales included magical home invasions and ancient forest guardians with vendettas against your bloodline.

“So,” Kai said, poking one of the scorch marks where the key's light had manifested. “We're definitely leaving, right? Like, immediately?”

Silas traced a frost pattern on the window - perfect spirals and branches that defied natural ice formation. “We can't.”

“Can't, or won't?” When Silas didn't answer, Kai threw his hands up. “Right, stupid question. Of course you won't. Because that would be the sensible response to being threatened by some antlered shadow creature with a grudge.”

“He said I have until the full moon.”

“To what? Get murdered by the haunted forest?” Kai gestured at the bed posts where the carved figures stood frozen in new positions, like dancers caught mid-step. “Because I've got to tell you, that's not really improving the situation.”

The key pulsed warm against Silas's chest, gentle but insistent. Like a compass needle finding north, he felt himselfdrawn toward the library. His grandmother's warning echoed in his mind:The forest remembers the Ashworth name, and not fondly.

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