The Rule We Break

The forest’s defenders nearly killed them. Now Rishi and Maeril must live among them.

After the bloodshed in the grove, the Twilight-Stream family of Moonglade offers shelter, training, and a chance to understand the magic that changed all their lives. Rishi and Maeril are guests, not prisoners—but every meal is shared with people who remember what happened, and every lesson comes from someone with reason to distrust them. Earning a place here means living beside wounds no apology can close.

Then a night of remembrance draws distant kin home. The forest’s damaged magic begins to flare. A child vanishes. Uncanny spiders overrun the gathering. And when grief turns to blame, Rishi and Maeril stand once more between forest law and the lives it was meant to protect.

To save a family still deciding whether to accept them, the monk and the witch must follow the fracture deeper into the Morvan—toward old magic hidden within the forest.