The moon was a cold coin above the meadow when the shadow stepped out from behind the oak. Not a single figure, but many—silhouettes wrapped in dark cloaks, their eyes reflecting the silver light like glass. A low chant rose from them, thin and relentless, as if the night itself conspired against the two of them.

Alex shoved Adrielle behind him, one arm circling her shoulders like an iron brace. For a moment she thought he would pull her away—flee into the wood—but his feet were planted, stubborn as roots. He squeezed her hand once, hard, and she felt the pulse there: steady, fierce.

“You must run,” he said, voice like gravel. “I’ll slow them.”

“No,” Adrielle said before she could stop herself. The word surprised her, full of a bravery she hadn’t known she owned. “I’m not leaving you.”

A figure detached from the group and stepped onto the moonlit grass. The face beneath the hood was older than the rest, mapped with thin scars that ran like tributaries from temple to jaw. He held a blade that did not gleam so much as drink the light. “You always bind what flees,” the man hissed. “We break what clings.”

Alex’s jaw flexed. He reached into the inside of his coat and drew out a small object—no larger than a coin, engraved with a sigil Adrielle hadn’t seen before. When he held it to the air, the moonlight seemed to bend, a ripple like heat over black water.

“Run now,” he insisted. “There are places where the bond loosens. There is an oak—older than the manor—beyond the hollow. If you touch its bark at dawn, it will hold a memory long enough.” His words tumbled out, frantic. “You have to go. You can break part of it. You can—”

Adrielle’s world narrowed to the coin in his fist and the turmoil in his eyes. Memory flared—stern hands in another time guiding hers to the same symbol; a promise pressed into skin; a scream swallowed by a tide of silver. She realized with a small, terrible clarity that every time she’d been pulled to him, it had been to keep something alive, or bury something deeper.

She shook her head. “No,” she repeated, softer this time. “We don’t run from what we swore.”

For an instant, his expression broke—relief and terror braided together. Then he set his teeth and took a step forward.

The cloaked figures surged. Alex whispered something that made the sigil glow faintly, and the first wave of them staggered as if struck. He moved like a man who had learned to keep pain in measured doses—striking, then withdrawing, guarding Adrielle with every inch gained or lost.

Adrielle felt the curse coil against her ribs like an animal. It wanted distance and closeness at once; it wanted sacrifice. She felt its hunger, and for the first time she understood the shape of the vow they had made: not only to find, but to protect and to pay. She could flee to the oak; she could touch its ancient bark and gamble on a sliver of healing. Or she could stand and fight with the man whose hands she trusted.

“Hold on to my name,” Alex said suddenly, breathless. “If you have to leave, say it. Remember it like a prayer. It will find me.” His fingers closed around hers so tight she could feel the tremor in his palm. “Adrielle—do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Alex.”

He gave her the tiniest, foolish half-smile. “Then go. Go when I tell you.”

He pushed her back toward the path, and when she looked over her shoulder, the first edge of dawn bled pale along the horizon. The meadow, which had been a place of memory and moonlight, had become something else—a threshold where vows were tested.

As she stumbled toward the hollow, the chant rose to a pitch that scraped the air. She ran, not away from him, but toward a chance they once promised each other in another life: to undo what fate had bound. And behind her, the silver coin in Alex’s hand flared like a small star, fighting off the dark.