Outside the caravan, Rustrows had changed.
Brassmane stood on the steps for a long moment, one hand resting against the carved doorframe, and looked over what remained of the valley.
The Trial grounds were a crater now.
Not an arena.
Not a sacred circle.
A crater.
The earth had been glassed in places, black and glossy where Celeste’s mana had burned too hot for stone to remember being stone. Hughes’ emergency roots still webbed parts of the valley, some of them flowering, some of them smoking, some of them growing leaves that did not belong to any plant Brassmane knew.
Beyond the crater, the camp had not returned to normal.
It was trying to.
That was worse.
Mythics moved in clusters, whispering behind shawls and hands. Daroganwyr stood still as standing stones, blind faces turned toward the torn sky. Children were being pulled close by mothers. Warriors who had worn only ceremonial blades that morning now carried spears, pistols, charms, and old clan weapons strapped openly across their backs.
Fear had spread through Rustrows.
So had rumour.
Brassmane could hear pieces of it everywhere.
“The Three Rivers appeared—”
“I saw the old realms—”
“She opened the hidden roads—”
“No hybrid does that—”
“Mamgoleni…”
That name moved through the camp like a spark dropped into dry grass.
Mamgoleni.
Some spoke it in awe.
Some in terror.
Some as if saying it too loudly might summon another sky-tearing miracle.
A pair of older Mythics argued near a broken market stall about whether they should leave before the Council arrived. Another answered that there was nowhere to go. Not really. Clawdiff had eyes. The roads had zombies. The clans were divided. Rustrows, damaged and frightened as it was, might still be the safest place left.
And near the edge of the healing tents, a group of children had tied blankets around their shoulders and were pretending to be Knights.
One little fox had a stick over his shoulder like a shotgun.
A badger kit was flapping a torn sheet behind him, shouting that his wings were bigger than Mezzo’s.
Two rabbit girls had declared themselves “Lady Celeste’s Royal Guards” and were dramatically falling over every time the others pretended to explode.
Brassmane closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
“Of course,” he muttered.
“Lord Brassmane.”
He opened them again.
Solas, Cosmo, and Kirrin were already waiting at the foot of the caravan steps.
Naturally.
Solas looked like he had not slept in ten years. His black wings were half-flared, green streaks still glowing faintly from stress. Cosmo had one hand wrapped around a satchel of spent dispelling runes, his dragon wings twitching every few seconds as if they wanted to fly away without him. Kirrin stood with her arms folded, jaw tight, though her eyes kept flicking toward the crater.
All three began speaking at once.
“You cannot seriously—”
“The outer wards are still unstable—”
“The children saw too much—”
“The clan leaders will demand—”
“There are zombies beyond the east road—”
“Someone needs to explain why the sky opened—”
Brassmane lifted one hand.
Silence fell.
Not social silence.
Mana silence.
All three mouths continued moving for half a heartbeat before they realised no sound was coming out.
Kirrin pointed at her own throat, deeply offended.
Cosmo blinked.
Solas glared.
Brassmane rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I have a headache,” he said. “And all three of you currently sound like unruly children who found a hornet nest and decided to debate ownership.”
Solas’s eyes narrowed.
Brassmane ignored him.
“I have made a decision regarding the hybrids.”
Solas immediately relaxed.
Cosmo did not.
Kirrin looked as if she was bracing for impact.
Brassmane lowered his hand just enough to allow speech again.
“The Defod y Drain Cyntaf will go ahead tomorrow evening as planned.”
Kirrin’s brows shot up.
Cosmo let out a breath he had been holding.
Solas exploded.
“After that?”
His voice came back sharp enough to cut leather.
“After the crater? After the rifts? After half of Rustrows nearly had its cores dragged through a child’s chest?”
Brassmane’s mane flickered.
Cosmo lifted both hands quickly. “I think what Solas means, less dramatically—”
“I mean precisely that dramatically,” Solas snapped.
Kirrin stepped forward. “They are the only force we have that can kill the zombies properly.”
Solas turned on her. “They are also the reason the zombies are gathering!”
“They were gathering because of the mana pulse. Not because the Knights asked them politely.”
“You saw what happened.”
“Aye, I did.” Kirrin’s voice hardened. “I saw them nearly die stopping it.”
Cosmo grimaced. “Both points are not entirely wrong.”
Solas shot him a look. “That is not helpful.”
“I did not say it was. I said it was accurate.”
Kirrin jabbed a finger toward the crater. “Without them, the candy dead reach the settlements. Without Celeste, we do not know what half of this means. Without Lumina, she may have died in there.”
Solas’s feathers bristled. “And with them, Rustrows becomes a beacon for every desperate clan, Council spy, Luminarch fanatic and zombie swarm within a hundred miles.”
Brassmane listened for perhaps three more seconds.
Then his patience died.
The silence mana dropped over them again.
Solas’s mouth continued moving in furious, soundless shapes.
Kirrin threw both hands up.
Cosmo, wisely, closed his mouth.
Brassmane exhaled through his nose.
“Better.”
He looked at Kirrin. “Where are the Knights?”
Kirrin opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Her expression became murderous.
Brassmane stared at her.
Then sighed.
He released only her.
Kirrin drew in a sharp breath. “Tent by the ash ridge. The big green one. The one where the roof keeps glowing every time one of them does something stupid.”
“Thank you.”
Solas pointed at his own throat.
Brassmane did not release him yet.
“I am going to speak with them,” Brassmane said. “You three are going to remain here and not start a panic, a coup, or a theological movement while I am gone.”
Cosmo made a small agreeable gesture.
Kirrin folded her arms.
Solas glared harder.
Brassmane finally released him.
Solas immediately said, “We need to discuss containment.”
“We will discuss everything later.”
“Brassmane—”
“And before that,” Brassmane continued, turning his eyes slowly toward him, “you will explain where you acquired a Pureblood mana gun.”
Solas went very still.
Cosmo looked sharply at him.
Kirrin muttered, “Oh, that’s not suspicious at all.”
Solas’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
“It was confiscated during—”
Brassmane’s look did not change.
Solas stopped.
Brassmane’s voice dropped.
“I am disappointed.”
That landed harder than a roar.
Solas’s wings lowered a fraction.
Brassmane stepped down from the caravan.
“We will chat later.”
He left them there and crossed the camp.
Every eye followed him.
Some bowed their heads. Some stepped aside. Some watched with open fear. Others looked at him as though he might explain the sky, the rifts, the glowing child, the rumours, the prophecy, and the zombies gathering at the roads in one tidy speech.
He did not.
Not yet.
He reached the green tent by the ash ridge.
The roof was, indeed, glowing.
Brassmane paused outside.
From within came Mezzo’s voice.
“Look, look, look—ready?”
A click.
A burst of red-gold light.
A thump.
Then Mezzo whooping.
“HA! Wings! Actual wings! I’m tellin’ ye, first thing tomorrow, I’m flying over the whole valley. Maybe upside down.”
Ray’s voice followed. “You’ll crash into a chimney.”
“Worth it.”
Another click.
The tent lit red-gold again.
Brassmane closed his eyes.
Inside, Arcade said, “I have discovered an incredibly practical application for my temporary mana-state.”
A device hummed.
Then sparked.
Then hummed louder.
Skye gasped. “Are you charging your arcbracer with your quills?”
“Efficiently charging it, yes.”
“That seems unsafe.”
“Everything today has been unsafe. This is merely unsafe with purpose.”
Ray laughed.
Something hissed.
A marshmallow smell drifted through the tent flap.
Brassmane opened his eyes.
Ray said, “Perfectly toasted.”
Pitch muttered, “That’s on fire.”
“It’s phoenix-toasted.”
“It’s ash.”
“It’s artisan.”
Brassmane stepped inside.
The tent froze.
Not magically this time.
Just guilt.
Mezzo stood in the middle of the tent with his rune in one hand and his gryphon wings half-manifested behind him, one wing red-gold and glorious, the other flickering in and out of reality like it could not decide whether it existed.
Arcade sat cross-legged beside a pile of gadgets, his rune out, quills glowing bright green as he held two cables between his claws. A little device on the floor was charging far too quickly.
Ray crouched near a tiny controlled flame, holding a marshmallow on the end of a knife.
Pitch sat beside Skye, trying to look uninvolved despite the fact his claws were out and his tail looked twice its usual size.
Hughes lay on one cot with roots growing through the blanket around him, apparently pretending to nap and failing.
Lumina sat near Celeste, pale but bright-eyed, her rune safely in place.
And in the centre of the tent, Celeste sat upright on a folded blanket, hands folded nervously in her lap.
Her core still burned beneath her chest.
Softly now.
But visibly.
White-blue light pulsed beneath her ribs with every breath.
She looked happy.
Exhausted.
A little dazed.
And deeply uncomfortable.
Brassmane cleared his throat.
Every rune snapped back toward its owner except Mezzo’s, which he fumbled so badly he almost threw it into Ray’s marshmallow fire.
“Lord Brassmane!” Arcade yelped, accidentally shocking himself.
Ray shoved the marshmallow behind her back.
It continued burning.
Brassmane looked around the tent.
Then at Celeste.
Then back at the others.
“Put your runes back in.”
Mezzo blinked. “Ah.”
Arcade’s ears flattened. “We were conducting controlled observations.”
“You were charging a banned device with your spine.”
“It was not banned when I started.”
“It will be by sunset.”
Arcade clicked his rune back into place.
His quills dimmed at once.
Mezzo slid his rune back in. His wings vanished with a reluctant snap of red light, and he looked personally betrayed by physics.
Ray sighed and clicked hers into place. The marshmallow flame went out, leaving a black lump on the knife.
Pitch and Skye followed.
Hughes lifted one hand lazily from the cot. “Mine’s in.”
Brassmane looked at the roots growing through the blanket.
Hughes coughed. “Mostly.”
“Fully.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hughes pressed his rune properly, and the roots withdrew with a faint embarrassed rustle.
Brassmane turned back to them all.
“You are tied to Celeste. Every time you remove those runes carelessly, your cores answer hers. You are straining her.”
The tent went very quiet.
Mezzo’s face fell.
Ray looked at Celeste.
Arcade’s mouth opened, then closed.
Pitch’s ears lowered.
Skye whispered, “Oh.”
Celeste immediately lifted both hands.
“Oh, no, no, it’s alright. I mean, it was a little uncomfortable, but not awful. Well, maybe a bit awful. Like when someone hums very loudly behind your ribs. But not in a mean way. More of a… enthusiastic kettle way?”
They stared at her.
Celeste’s ears reddened.
“That made sense in my head.”
Mezzo looked stricken. “Cel, why didn’t ye say?”
“I didn’t want to ruin everyone being happy.”
Ray groaned softly. “Celeste.”
Arcade rubbed both hands over his face. “We are all idiots.”
Pitch nodded once. “Confirmed.”
Brassmane allowed the silence to sit long enough to make the lesson land.
Then he spoke.
“Tomorrow evening, the Defod y Drain Cyntaf will go ahead.”
Hughes pushed himself up on one elbow.
“I’ll admit, sir, I didn’t think that was still happening.”
“I considered cancelling it.”
Ray went very still.
Brassmane noticed.
He gave her the faintest look of reassurance.
“Do not worry, Ray Tanllwyth. I have already told the matchmakers to leave you alone.”
Ray blinked.
Then relief moved across her face so fast it almost looked like pain.
“Oh.”
Mezzo leaned toward Pitch and whispered, “She lives another day.”
Ray pointed the blackened marshmallow at him. “I will put this in your ear.”
Pitch looked at the marshmallow. “That may improve him.”
Mezzo gasped. “Betrayal from Wolfy. At my lowest.”
Celeste raised her hand timidly.
Brassmane turned to her.
“Yes?”
“What is the ceremony?” she asked. “Only, um, after today, when someone says ceremony, I start wondering if anything explodes. Or if there are mirrors. Or crowns. Or old fox ladies.”
Lumina made a tiny noise that might have been a laugh.
Brassmane’s expression softened.
“Nothing so dramatic.”
Everyone stared at him.
He amended, “Ideally.”
Arcade muttered, “That word is doing a lot of labour.”
Brassmane ignored him.
“The Defod y Drain Cyntaf means the Rite of the First Briar. Among Llwyth Drain Grwydryn, it marks the moment a young wanderer is recognised as old enough, tested enough, and trusted enough to walk under the clan’s protection as one of its own.”
Celeste’s eyes widened.
“One of its own?”
“Yes.”
Brassmane looked around the tent, taking in every burned face, every exhausted posture, every terrified child pretending not to be terrified.
“You have all been tested more harshly than I intended. More harshly than any of you deserved. But you stood for one another. You chose one another. You faced your cores, your wounds, and your fear, and you did not abandon the person beside you.”
His gaze settled on Celeste last.
“Do not worry about the damage.”
Celeste opened her mouth.
He lifted a finger.
“Do not.”
She closed it.
“The valley can be repaired. Stone can be replaced. Wards can be redrawn. What matters is that you are alive, and that you came back still yourselves.”
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Brassmane bowed his head.
Not deeply.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
“Therefore, as Lord of this gathering and guardian of these grounds, I formally welcome you under the care and witness of Llwyth Drain Grwydryn.”
He paused.
Then translated, for those still blinking at him.
“In Prydanic, Clan Wayfarer Briar.”
Mezzo’s ears lifted.
“So we’re… clan now?”
Brassmane’s mouth twitched.
“After the ceremony.”
Mezzo grinned. “That’s basically yes.”
“It is formally not yet yes.”
“So spiritually yes.”
Ray smacked his arm.
Celeste stared down at her hands.
Her core pulsed once, soft and blue-white.
“You’re really not sending us away?”
Brassmane looked at her for a long moment.
“No,” he said.
His voice was quiet, but it carried through the tent like an oath.
“We are not sending you away.”
