GOLD & AZURE

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 19 : THE TOXIC MISTS

PART I : THE TURNING OF DESTINIES

Leagues away from the Quartz Palace and the Citadel of Dawn, within the frozen immensity leading to the sinister Whisper Fortress of Alpha Krane, the second tracking party progressed like a shadow over the thick snow of the Northeast Pass. Elara, in her silver wolf form, led the march with fierce determination. At her side, her loyal Solas cut through the biting wind, his lean muscles taut with effort, while a third of the warriors of Thalys, in their snow leopard forms, glided silently behind her between the drifts, their gray spots blending with the outcropping rocks.

The air was saturated with cold, but the atmosphere was electric. They were approaching Alpha Krane’s territory when, suddenly, a streak of golden light tore through the gray sky of the pass.

The bird of light created by Kian appeared, swooping down upon them like a silent bolt of lightning. It did not perch on a rock but remained suspended in mid-air before Elara’s snout, its wings pulsating with a solar energy that made the surrounding snow shimmer. The message was not conveyed through audible words, but through an empathic shockwave, a royal vibration that only Sun-Bearers like her could instantly decode.

“The hunt ends here. The sisters of Thalys are on the beach of the Black Galate. We are arriving to close the trap. Use the link for silent communication.”

Elara stopped dead, her paws sinking into the powder. With a fluid cracking sound, she began her transformation. In seconds, the wolf gave way to the naked warrior, her hair whipped by the glacial wind. She turned toward the snow leopards, who had frozen in place, on high alert.

— “Change of course!” she ordered, her voice carrying despite the whistling blizzard. “Forget Krane. The true enemy has been flushed out. The twins are at the Black Galate beach, to the south-east. The Princes demand a total encirclement.”

She pointed to one of the elite guards, whose eyes shone with a predatory glint of intelligence.

— “You! Use your link. Contact Alpha Thalys and his group. Tell them that Mishka will guide their steps to the right place. Then, contact Soren. He must know that the rearguard must now cover our southeastern flank and alert the Palace.”

The warrior nodded, his eyes turning milky white as he projected his consciousness across the tundra.

Kilometers away, Soren, receiving the information like a dagger thrust, did not waste a second. He redirected the call to the ramparts of the Quartz Palace, touching the minds of Xander, Matvei, Maxim, Anastasia, and Olga.

IN THE SECRET ROOM OF THE PALACE

While Elara and the warriors swerved toward the ocean, the shockwave of the message finally reached the secret room where the Elders, women, and children were confined. Anastasia, receiving the link from Soren, approached Elowen.

— “Elowen, listen to me,” Anastasia whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of dread and joy. “Your brothers... Ian and Kian. They found them. Mia and Bea have been seen at the border of your family’s territory. They have launched a rescue with an army of warriors.”

Elowen straightened up abruptly, a glimmer of hope crossing her gaze. But the instinct of the Sun Princess took over. Fragments of memories from every corner of her ancestral lands, every legend attached to their coasts, returned to her piece by piece.

— “Exactly where, Anastasia? Where were they seen?”

— “On the beach of the Black Galate, why?” Anastasia replied, surprised by the young woman’s sudden intensity.

Elowen’s face instantly drained of all color. She turned a spectral white, her hands beginning to shake so violently that the folds of her dress rustled. In her mind, images of her childhood surfaced: her father showing her ancient maps, his deep voice warning her of the danger of the basalt sands. She saw snatches of talk about the power of the Great Gray Sorcerer, Alberik, and his evil island that floated like a ghost off that cursed beach.

— “No...” She murmured, a shiver of visceral terror running through her body. “Not there.”

Anastasia, alarmed by this sudden stillness, wrapped her arms around Elowen in a motherly gesture.

— “Elowen, what is wrong? Tell me!”

Elowen looked up at Anastasia, and the latter let out a cry of stupor, leaping back. This was no longer the fragile girl she had been holding. Elowen’s eyes, her hair, and even the ancient medallion at her neck began to pulse with unreal rays, an electric gold light that seemed to tear through the air.

The retreat was general throughout the room. Mothers, seized by fear and fascination, hid their children behind them. The little ones watched with wide eyes, fascinated by this goddess of light awakening despite herself.

It was then that the venomous voice of Uncle Hakon rose, breaking the silence. He pointed a trembling finger at her and screamed:

— “CURSE! I told you! She’s going to make us all disappear! We will be erased from this earth by her sorcery!”

PART II : THE STUNNED SENTINELS

On the ramparts, the silence following Soren’s message was short-lived. Xander, Matveï, and Maxim were already exchanging heavy looks, preparing to discuss the news, when an urgent and disorganized mental link reached them from Anastasia. She explained nothing; she called for help, her fear vibrating in their minds.

The three protector brothers raced through the palace corridors, their boots pounding the crystal floor. As they approached the North Corridor, they slowed, petrified. The heavy door of the secret room was ajar, and a supernatural glow of unbearable intensity escaped from it.

Maxim, the most curious and impetuous, stepped forward first to look inside. What he saw made him recoil with a jump, shielding his dazzled eyes. Xander and Matveï took their turn to glance in, remaining frozen on the threshold.

The scene was overwhelming. In the center of the room, Elowen seemed to be the focal point of an explosion of pulsating golden light. Her very presence seemed to transform reality into a dream. In all their lives as leopards, they had never seen anything so staggering, nor so frightening. Doubt settled in instantly: was this power their salvation or their doom? Should they protect this future queen, or protect themselves from her ?

PART III : THE TRAP OF SALT AND SULFUR

Hundreds of leagues away, the mountain air gave way to the scent of salt and carrion. Ian, Kian, Alpha Samir, and the Betas had just arrived behind the patrollers crouching in the dunes overlooking the Black Galate beach. They were all in their wolf forms, masses of fur and muscle lurking in the tall grass to avoid detection by Varkas and his Flayers.

“We are in position,” Ian sent via mental link to the patrollers.

Alpha Samir, his gaze fixed, began to devise silent tactics.

“If we charge now, they will use the twins as shields,” he analyzed mentally. “One of us must divert their attention toward the ocean while the others deal with cutting the chains.”

Kian, his muscles tense, evaluated the distance. He knew that every second counted.

It was then that a mental link reached them from Elara. She was approaching from the north of the beach. In her wolf form, flanked by Solas and Mishka, she was guiding Alpha Thalys and his leopard warriors. They arrived like a tide of silent predators, ready to close the crescent of death upon the traitors.

But just as the signal for the attack was about to be given, an unexpected guest appeared.

The ocean suddenly seemed to spit out an unnatural substance. A thick, gray, and toxic fog began to crawl across the sand at supernatural speed. This was no sea mist; it was pure, heavy, suffocating magic. In moments, the beach was enveloped in an opaque shroud that burned the eyes and blurred the senses.

“ATTACK!” Ian roared in everyone’s mind.

Chaos was instantaneous. In this “pea soup” of gray, war cries mingled with howls of terror. Kian leaped toward where he had seen the twins. He felt a hand, grabbed it, and pulled with all his might. He recognized the scent of a snow leopard: he was holding one of the sisters.

But a piercing cry rang out further away, toward the water.

— “MIA!”

Varkas, taking advantage of the confusion of the fog, had managed to seize the second twin. With a sardonic laugh that rang like breaking glass, he dragged her toward one of the boats, where the shadows of Alberik were already waiting. The twins were separated, and the toxic fog prevented any immediate pursuit toward the raging ocean.

PART IV : THE TEARING OF SOULS

On the black sands of the Black Galate, time had crystallized into a nightmare of iron and salt for Mia and Bea. Chained to a rusted iron stake, their wrists and necks burned by the corrosive contact of silver, the two sisters survived only through the twin bond that united them. Their gags had been brutally torn away minutes earlier, not out of kindness, but so Varkas could delight in their sobs as they struggled to swallow a few pieces of a black loaf of bread, hard as stone, and stagnant water that tasted of silt.

Then, the world tilted.

The first cry had not come from a man, but from light itself. When the gray fog began to crawl over the ground, Bea felt an electric jolt run down her spine. In the chaos of shifting shadows and war cries, a colossal form emerged from the haze. A magnificent wolf, majestic and terrifying, whose presence seemed to repel the sulfurous mist.

At that moment, in the depths of her being, Bea’s inner panther, though weakened by the silver irons, emitted a vibrant whisper, a soul-song she had never heard before: “Mate...”

But fate is a cruel architect. Her mate did not dive toward her, but toward Mia, who was closer. Bea saw, as if in a slow-motion dream, her sister being torn from her side, freed by the predator’s brute force. For a moment, she believed in deliverance, but a calloused, foul-smelling hand slammed down on her shoulder.

— “You’re coming with me, you filthy little doll!” Varkas roared.

The separation was a physical agony. As Mia was carried away by her mate toward the safety of the dunes, Varkas dragged Bea toward one of the black wooden boats. The tears streaking her dirty cheeks would not stop; she felt as if a limb were being torn off, as if her own skin were ripping. Since birth, they had never been more than a few meters apart. Today, the abyss opened like a drastic amputation.

Just as the boat’s keel left the sand, a sound tore through the fog, a cry so powerful it made the wood vibrate beneath Bea’s feet. It was the roar of her big brother, Thal. An Alpha’s cry, the King of the Snow Leopards, saturated with pure hatred and a despair so deep it seemed capable of breaking Alberik’s magic. But the current was already there, carrying the boat out to sea.

PART V : THE CROSSING OF SHADOWS

The journey across the ocean was a slow descent into hell. The water was not blue, but a brackish green, churned by waves that seemed laden with lead. The air, saturated with corrosive fumes from the Gray Sorcerer’s magic, burned Bea’s lungs with every breath. She buried her face in her hands and the folds of her silk clothes, desperately seeking a bit of pure air, fighting the violent nausea that threatened to make her faint.

At the back of the boat, Varkas muttered insults, his voice trembling with rage. The remaining Flayer warrior, Gunnar, handled the oars with palpable nervousness.

— “Curse these princes and their royal bloodlines!” Varkas spat, striking the rim of the boat. “We lost half the loot and almost the entire elite guard. Malphas will have me skinned alive.”

He cast a hateful glance at Bea.

— “At least I kept one. She will serve as bait and sacrifice, if old Alberik decides so.”

A shiver ran down Bea’s spine at this hatred.

After an hour of sailing through this shroud of toxic vapors, a massive silhouette began to take shape through the mists. The island of the Gray Sorcerer was not a land of pleasant life, but a monument to malevolent decay. Twisted trees, devoid of leaves, rose like skeletal fingers toward a perpetually darkened sky. The smell was worse than at sea: a mixture of sulfur, burnt flesh, and putrid earth.

On the basalt shores, figures cloaked in gray waited. They were the apprentices and servants of Alberik, beings with eyes veiled by black magic, whose whispers sounded like the rustling of insects. They did not speak, but their jerky gestures indicated the path to follow.

At the center of the island stood the Fortress of Black Alabaster. Built directly into the flanks of a dormant volcano, the structure seemed to have grown like a tumor of dark rock. Fumes of toxic gas escaped from the mountain’s fissures, perpetually feeding the fog that protected the island.

Bea was dragged across the sharp stones, her trembling legs refusing to carry her. Looking up at the fortress ramparts that blended into the smoking crater, she knew that the true battle for her survival had only just begun. She no longer had Mia to support her, nor her brothers or sisters to watch over her; but the faint whisper of her panther, that one word “Mate” remained anchored in her heart like a promise of fire in this universe of ash.

The sequel promises an epic confrontation between the forces of the Sun and the darkness of Alberik.