Chapter Five: Unravel the Alpha
1502 Words
Aria shook her head. "Worse. It's a gate. The Forsaken didn't just bless her, they created her to open the prison they're behind. If she surrenders, they won't have to steal her power."
"They'll walk out through her."
Aidan's face paled.
“We need to get in there.”
“You don’t just enter the Veil” Aria said. “You either die or bargain and we’ve both done enough of that.”
Aidan’s voice dropped low “I’ll do whatever it takes”
Before Aria could stop him, he pulled a dagger from his boot, sliced a line across his palm and knelt before the rift.
"By bone and blood, i call the old gate" he spat "Let me through. Let me go to my daughter"
Then, a whirlwind of wind howled up from the pit and a voice older than time spoke:
"Very well. But at what cost will be your memory"
Aria's breath caught. "No. No, don't" Too late and the ground swallowed Aidan.
Aria yelled, tumbling after him but the ground shut behind him like a wound crawling shut.
And in the eerie silence that followed
Lyra's voice whispered once more.
"Mama… Daddy doesn't remember me."
Falling did not feel like falling for Aidan
It felt like being peeled.
Piece by piece, memory by memory and layer by layer.
The moment his blood touched the threshold, the Veil reacted like a living thing clawed, curious and cruel.
It unmade him as it took him.
His name, his purpose, his mate and his child gone.
There was silence for a moment.
Then, a pulse.
His body slammed into stone. Cold, Slick and Breathing.
Aidan gasped, chest quivering and fingers clawing at the ground. His hands were shaking. No quivering as though something within him had been ripped out and scattered.
He rolled onto his back staring up at a sky that didn't exist.
There was no sun. No stars. Just moving shadows.
He sat up slowly. "Where the hell am i?"
The words sounded strange in his mouth. His voice, he didn't even recognize it.
Something within him stirred. Weak like a whisper beneath water.
A name, a sense all vanished.
Footsteps echoed around him from no discernible direction. Only sound echoing through stone, through nothingness.
He stood slowly to his feet, shoulders back. His wolf was in there, deep beneath the surface but lethargic Drugged.
Something was wrong, Everything was wrong and then, he saw her.
A girl barefooted. Little and Glowing faintly with golden light.
She stood some twenty feet away from him, staring at him with wide and wet eyes.
He stepped nearer. "Hey, hey, are you okay?"
She jerked away "I don't know you" she breathed. Aidan's chest hurt. Pain and Recognition but no memory. "I'm not going to harm you" he said carefully "I promise"
"You promised that before" she said, crying down her face.
"When?" The little girl blinked "Before the Veil took your memories"
His stomach contracted "You know me?" Her bottom lip wobbled "You're my daddy"
Aidan froze. The word hit him not like a weapon but like a spark.
The echo of a hundred memories tried to claw their way back but they splintered the moment they touched his mind. There was a hole where those memories should be and it was bleeding.
“I don’t” he whispered “I don’t remember you” Lyra took a step closer. “You told me once that the world would have to burn before you’d forget me”
Something inside him shattered.
He dropped to his knees "I don't understand. Why can't i remember?"
Lyra stared at him for a long time. Then nodded behind him. Aidan turned and saw himself.
A copy of himself walking through the mist. Equal in body but not in soul.
This one's eyes blazed with Forsaken fire "Aidan?" Lyra whispered "That's not you"
The fake Aidan turned and smiled "Hello, daughter."
The fall was not a descent.
It was a dissection.
His name, his oath, his love, it all unraveled like invisible fingers tore the memories from his mind, stripping them like bark off a tree.
By the time he hit ground, if it could be termed ground, he was barely Aidan anymore.
He gasped, coughing and struggling to remember something anything. His pack's name. One person's face he swore to protect. The scent of home.
He sat up gradually. The sky was dark but not black. It boiled, thick with grey-red clouds that churned like smoke in water. The ground beneath him pulsed, warm and striated like flesh. Everything around him whispered not in words but in feelings.
Loss. Hunger and Lies. Something in the deep of his chest ached. A feeling without a name.
He lurched forward, heart pounding and almost didn't see the girl until she stepped into the sickly light.
Small , delicate and alone.
She couldn't have been more than six, barefoot, matted hair dull gold in the dim light. But what froze him dead were her eyes.
They were his "Hey" he rasped "You okay?"
The girl recoiled and her fists clenched into her nightgown and her lower lip trembled "You don't remember me" The words dropped like a knife.
“I” Aidan hesitated “Should I?”
“You’re my daddy” she whispered, taking a small step closer.
Something deep in him twisted violently. A howl rose in the back of his mind, feral and desperate but the memory it clawed toward was just out of reach.
“I… don’t remember” he choked.
Tears slipped down the girl’s cheeks but she didn’t run “It’s not your fault. The Forsaken took your memories. They said it was the price”
“Price for what?” She didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed to the space behind him.
Aidan turned and nearly dropped to his knees.
Another him stood just beyond the mist.
Identical in form, same build, same stance but wrong. His eyes glowed like molten coals. His smile was a snarl carved into a corpse.
“Hello daughter” the shadow-Aidan said.
Lyra stumbled back “That’s not you”
Aidan growled, stepping protectively in front of her.
“You’re some trick” I'm what you'll become" the shadow said calmly "When the Veil finishes with you. You're unraveling already. Each second here, another thread of who you are is cut and when you can't recall who you love and who you are, I take control."
"You're a lie," Aidan snarled.
The shadow laughed. "I'm a replacement."
Aidan lunged.
The moment he made contact with the shadow, he was flung backward and slammed into the ground so hard.
Lyra rushed to his side "Daddy! You can't fight him. Not with fists"
"I have to protect you"
"You can't protect me if you forget me!"
The words cut. His eyes burned. A face wavered in his mind bright eyes, stormy hair and a scent like rain on pine.
A woman’s voice. “She’s your miracle.”
Lyra’s voice cracked “Remember Daddy. Please”
He squeezed his eyes shut “I’m trying”
But even now, it was slipping. Her face, her name and even his own voice sounded foreign.
Then the air changed. A sickening snap echoed through the Veil and behind them, the false Aidan held something in his hand.
A silver necklace and delicate torn.
Lyra gasped “That’s Mommy’s.” Aidan’s heart stopped.
He recalled it just barely but the memory streaked through his mind like lightning. Aria. The necklace she never took off his gift, years ago. Just after the rest was forgotten.
"Where did you get that?" he growled.
The shadow-Aidan's smile widened.
"She gave it to me. When she made the deal."
"No" Aidan's voice dropped. "She made the promise to you, as she did to me," the shadow said, voice as slick as oil. "You were dying in war with Red Fang. She would've promised anything to save you. Even sacrifice your future."
Aidan shook his head. "Lies."
"You don't believe me?" the shadow whispered. "Then let me show you.” With a wave of his hand, the Veil tore open once again and a vision burst forth like fire.
A younger Aria kneeling before the Forsaken altar. Bloodied hands. A desperate shine to her eyes.
"I'll give you what you want" she whispered in a broken voice "Just don't let him die"
And the Forsaken said "Done. But when the time comes, you must choose between his soul and your daughter's"
Aidan reeled back and Lyra looked at him, trembling "Daddy?" His eyes were horrified.
Because the Forsaken had not lied. They had already taken parts of him and now, the final decision would be Aria's.
Her thoug
hts were consumed by her mate or her daughter.
And somewhere far above them in the mortal realm, Aria stood over the closing rift.
With a dagger in her hand and a Forsaken voice in her ear:
"Choose. Now."
- Writer
