He stepped closer despite the ward between them, eyes bright with something like religious conviction. "It's a living thread," he said. "It sings. It called to me. Once it hummed like an offering, then it changed—tightened around another name. I felt it—Kade's blood in the weave. I followed the ache. I found you. I found her."
Behind him the white walls seemed to listen; the room's edges shimmered as if the place itself were a tuning fork for oaths. Dakota let that image settle—somewhere, stakes were being measured in scent and song, in vows that could be traced and re-traced.
"Then prove it to me," Dakota said. "If you can trace a thread, if you can read oaths like scripture, show me the pattern. Tell me exactly when it changes, what it smells like, and who sealed it. If you lie, I will know. If you tell the truth, you might yet save yourself from what comes next."
