Chapter 442: My Goddaughter

Calisí;

I sigh as I dig my fingers through the dirt for the umpteenth time.

I’ve been at this all morning. Searching for roots and herbs and making potions are the only things that have kept me sane since...since I woke up from the dead.

Avaren won’t tell me what happened, or what he sacrificed to get me back, and this is the only thing that has kept me grounded, instead of constantly trying to find the truth.

I sink into the silence of the old groves as I work on my knees. I keep searching through the wet soil for a root that only grows in this part of the coven, when suddenly, something inside my chest simply... breaks open, so violently that I nearly collapse into the dirt.

Both of my hands fly to my chest as if trying to hold together the pieces of whatever just burst open.

The pain is sharp and merciless, but it only becomes worse when I recognise it. When I realise what it is.

"No..." I mutter in horror, and just then, the delicate voice- one I’ve never heard before but instantly recognise floods my mind.

Godmother...

I feel the word more than I hear it. And it arrived threaded with fear so raw that for one horrifying second, I can’t even tell if the fear belongs to her... or to me.

I struggle to breathe through the panic, and then I see the crystal-clear line.

The fear is hers. My goddaughter’s.

I haven’t felt a pull to her like this before. Not even on the day Elián named me her godmother.

When I wove protection directly into that tiny, half-formed soul myself... tying the spell to her the moment she became my responsibility, I did it so that I would always know, the instant either she or Elian was in true danger.

I’ve felt it flicker before. Small things. A moment of fright here, a moment of discomfort there. Enough that I’d pause, press a hand to my own chest, and wait for it to settle before going back to whatever I was doing.

But this isn’t that. This is different. This is screaming. This isn’t just my spell working; this is Elian’s baby reaching through the spell to get to me.

Help...

The delicate voice comes again, small and terrified, cutting straight through the panic and landing raw inside my chest.

They’re in danger.

I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember running either. All I know is I’m already moving before my mind can catch up—Tearing through the grove so fast that low branches tear at my arms and face, but I don’t feel a single one of those cuts because none of them matters right now.

Somewhere far from here, my godchild is calling to me, and she is afraid.

I have felt fear exactly like this once before in my life, and I refuse—I absolutely refuse—to feel it a second time and lose.

"I’m coming..." I push back through the thread, desperate as I pray she can somehow feel it the way I felt her. "I’m coming, little one. Just hold on for me."

The pull doesn’t ease. If anything, it tightens with every step I take, twisting harder against my ribs, and underneath the fear, I start to feel something else too. Magic. Old, wrong, and pressing in around her from every possible direction...

Someone is trying to hurt her.

I don’t know who yet. I don’t know how yet either, but I know this much—whoever it is has just made the worst mistake of their entire existence.

Because I have buried a child of my own before. I held my daughter’s cold little hand and begged gods who never once answered me to give her back, and I swore, holding on to the dead foetus as my whole body ached from being forced to expel her before she was ready, that I would never again stand by and watch a child under my care slip away because my hands are bound.

Not again. Never again!!

I don’t slow down until I reach the edge of the Covenstead, my lungs burning, the runes along my collarbone glowing bright enough now to show clearly through the fabric of my robe even in daylight. Passing warlocks scatter out of my path without needing to be told.

I don’t bother with the front entrance, and I certainly don’t bother with courtesy—I throw my full weight against the side door instead, the one reserved for emergencies alone, and it splinters open beneath me in a shower of old wood and dust.

The great hall falls completely silent the second I step in.

Every face turns toward me at once—dozens of witches and warlocks seated in their circle, and three beast folks I currently don’t care about standing rigid in the middle of it all.

I don’t care about any of it. Not the ceremony. Not whatever half-finished negotiation has this entire hall holding its breath right now.

I know who they are. I know what Avaren has asked of them, but all that can wait fr now. This—Elian and my goddaughter are more important right now.

Every single body in that room bends to a knee the instant they recognise me, but I don’t care about that either. Not today.

I only see Avaren, already rising from his throne, and I cross the distance between us faster than dignity should allow, stepping straight over kneeling bodies without a single moment’s hesitation.

"Avaren." His name tears straight out of me, ragged and raw. "I need you to listen to me right now."

"Calisí—" He catches my arm before I can stumble, steadying me, and only then do I realise how badly I’m shaking.

"It’s Elián," I gasp. "It’s my godchild. I can feel her, Avaren—she’s terrified, and something is very wrong—"

"Slow down." His voice drops low, urgent but controlled, the same voice he’s used on me a hundred times over the years whenever panic threatened to swallow me whole. "Tell me everything."

I force myself to breathe, one hand still pressed flat against my chest, right over the pull that hasn’t eased once since it tore through me back in that grove.

"A while ago," I begin, "Elián named me godmother to the child he’s carrying. The day he asked me, I wove a protection spell directly into that bond myself. Tied straight to the baby’s soul. Meant to alert me the instant either of them faced real danger." I explain, and Avaren’s face instantly turns grim.

"And now?"

"Now she’s screaming for me," I say, and my voice cracks. "A child that young shouldn’t even have the words for that, and she’s using them anyway, over and over, begging me to come."

Something shifts in Avaren’s demeanour, and true worry settles into every line of his face.

"Where?" he asks, and I swallow.

"I don’t know exactly," I admit, and the not-knowing claws at me worse than anything else has today. "But I can feel the direction well enough. Whatever’s holding her is soaked in something dark, Avaren. Old. It doesn’t belong to this valley at all." I confess, and I watch his face fall.

"The Black Sect," he breathes, and the name ripples through me like a stone dropped into still water.

Murmurs rise from the seated crowd, low and uneasy, and I don’t have time for any of them. I can’t even pay attention to Rhydian, who’s been barking and yelling the demands since the moment I mentioned Elian’s name.

"They have Elián," I whisper. "Which means the baby is in danger too, and I am not—" My voice breaks entirely now, and I don’t bother trying to hide it from anyone left in this room. "I am not losing another child. Do you understand me? I stayed in the shadows through his entire pregnancy because I thought that was what was best for them. Watching. Waiting. Letting him live his life without me hovering over every step of it."

"Calisí—"

"I’m done staying in the shadows," I say, my voice as stiff as iron now, every scrap of panic melted into something colder and far more useful. "I don’t care what’s happening in this hall right now. I don’t care what you’re negotiating with them." I glance, briefly, toward the three rigid figures still standing near the centre of the room, none of whom matter to me right now. "My goddaughter is calling for me, and I am going to her, with or without you."

For a moment, Avaren says nothing at all.

I watch something pass behind that blindfold anyway—weighing, deciding, the same calculation I’ve watched him make a hundred times over the decades we’ve known each other, except this time it takes him less than a breath to land on an answer.

Then he turns, sharp and sudden, and his voice cuts through the hall.

"This meeting is adjourned."

The words land heavily through the room. I hear the sharp intake of breath from somewhere behind me, the beginning of a protest from one of the seated elders, but Avaren doesn’t wait for any of it to settle. He’s already moving, one hand closing firmly around my arm, pulling me back toward the shattered door I came through.

"Elian is my mate! I’m coming with you!" Rhydian yells from behind us, and I look back at him. I see Avaren about to protest, but I grab his arm to stop him.

"We need all the help we can get," I whisper, and I watch his protests reluctantly die.

"Fine. You come along. Igma and Alana, stay back." He orders, and the witches who were previously stopping him from getting to us release him from their spell.

Then Avaren turns fully to me.

"You’ll take me to wherever you last felt her strongest," he says, already several steps ahead of me. "Every second we waste standing here is a second we cannot get back."

"I know, I reply.

I don’t look back at Rhydian or the hall. I don’t look back at whatever unfinished business is being left scattered behind us, whatever fragile peace or war hung in that room a moment ago.

None of it matters more than the sound of her voice, small and terrified, still calling my name somewhere I can’t yet reach.

"I’m coming, darling...Hold on for me."