(POV: Luna)
My own scream was a distant thing, a sound happening to someone else. My world had shrunk to a single point of failure: a soft, golden light that sputtered and died against my own skin. Useless. It was a language I had spoken my entire life, and it was failing me. The magic simply… stopped.
I tried again, pushing with my will, my life, my very essence. The light flickered, weaker this time, and was snuffed out by the encroaching web of black crystal.
"It's not working," I whispered, the words catching in my throat. "Why isn't it working?"
James rushed forward, his hands outstretched, then stopped short as if he'd hit an invisible wall. He stared at my arm, then down at his own trembling hands, the source of the cataclysm, the dinner bell that had woken the woods. His face was a mask of pale horror.
"Xander," he choked out. "Do something."
Xander was already there, shoving James aside. His scanner whirred, its analytical light bathing my arm. He stared at the screen, his jaw tight. For a moment, he said nothing, his practiced calm dissolving into stark disbelief.
Then he read the result aloud, his voice thin and strained.
"Error: Negative bio-energy readings in living tissue."
The phrase hung in the dead air, an impossible contradiction that confirmed what I already knew in my soul. The rules were broken.
It was Kara who moved. She grabbed James by the shoulder, hauling him back from his spiral of guilt. Her eyes, hard as obsidian, swept over all of us—my failed magic, Xander's useless science, Drake's rigid, protective stance.
"We're done here," she commanded, her voice a whip crack that cut through the panic. "We're leaving. NOW."
(POV: James)
Kara's order was a lifeline. It gave us motion. Purpose. Drake was already moving, placing himself between Luna and the silent, watching trees. I turned to help her up, but she flinched away from me.
"Don't," she whispered. It wasn't an accusation. It was fear.
We began the retreat. It wasn't a march; it was a desperate scramble. The forest had changed. The air was thick, heavy. The usual rustle of leaves and calls of birds were gone. There was only the sound of our own frantic footsteps on the brittle, crystalline ground—a predatory silence that felt like it was holding its breath.
Luna, walking on her own, tried to cradle her corrupted arm. With her good hand, she reached over, tracing the path of the black veins. Her breath hitched.
"I can't…" she stammered, her eyes wide with a new, more intimate horror. "I can't feel my own skin."
The numbness was spreading. The arm, now encased in crystal past the elbow, grew heavy, like a limb of stone. It threw her balance off. She stumbled, catching herself on a tree, her body shuddering with a deep, unnatural cold.
Drake didn't say a word. In one fluid motion, he was there, scooping her into his arms as if she weighed nothing. His shield, now useless, was slung onto his back. He became what he had always been: a wall, now a moving one, carrying our most vulnerable member to safety.
I moved to flank them, my fists clenched, my gaze darting into every shadow. I was a walking disaster, a beacon for the very thing that was killing her. As I drew closer, the black crystal on Luna's arm pulsed with a faint but distinct blue light. It was reacting to me. Hungering.
Luna whimpered in Drake's arms, a low, pained sound. The thing inside her was drawn to the Nexus energy in me.
I recoiled as if burned, stumbling back and forcing a gap between us. The physical distance was a manifestation of my guilt. I was a poison to her. I had to stay away.
(POV: Luna)
The cold was deep now, a thing of the bone. Cradled against Drake's chest, the world was a blur of gray trees and panicked motion. The silence of the forest was a lie. In my head, I could hear whispers. They weren't words, just a cold, rhythmic pulse that echoed my own frantic heartbeat, distorting it into something alien.
Thump-thump… shhhhh… Thump-thump… shhhhh…
It was the Weaver. It was still watching. Still listening.
(POV: James)
We didn't arrive at the northern gate. We breached it.
Kara was in the lead, screaming for medics before we were even fully through. Drake followed, a human battering ram carrying his precious cargo. Students milling in the courtyard scattered, their casual conversations dying in their throats as they took in the sight of us: Firebrand, the academy's elite, broken, bloodied, and carrying one of our own like a casualty of war.
Medics in white uniforms swarmed us, their faces grim. They gently but quickly took Luna from Drake, placing her on a floating gurney. The black crystal had reached her shoulder now, a grotesque mockery of a knight's pauldron.
Through the chaos, two figures pushed their way forward. Master Chawng, his face an unreadable mask of stone, and Professor Everhart.
The world seemed to slow. I watched the medics rush Luna away toward the infirmary. I saw the stunned faces of my friends. But my focus was on Everhart. He wasn't surprised. He wasn't angry. He wore the hollow-eyed recognition of a man watching a prophecy he had dreaded for years finally come to pass.
He looked past the medics, past the team, his eyes finding mine through the crowd. The noise faded to a dull roar in my ears. There was only the Professor's gaze, filled not with accusation, but with a terrible, cosmic dread that was far worse.
His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but it cut through everything.
"It's begun."