Moonlit Mirage

Chapter eight

"You're lying." Xena's voice came out sharper than she intended, fear and disbelief tangled together until she couldn't separate one from the other. "My mother died in a car accident. I have a death certificate."

"You have a piece of paper someone filed twenty three years ago," Mira said gently, "to close a case that never should have been closed."

Xena stood abruptly, pacing the small study, needing the movement to keep the room from spinning entirely out of control. "If she's alive, where has she been for twenty three years? Why didn't she come for me? Why did I spend my entire childhood in foster homes if my mother was out there somewhere?"

Mira's silence stretched long enough that Xena understood, with sinking dread, that the answer wasn't going to be the relief she'd briefly, foolishly hoped for.

"I don't believe she's alive," Mira said finally. "I think Blackthorn caught up to her that night. I think the car accident was staged to hide what really happened. But I have no proof, Xena, only twenty three years of grief and suspicion that never had anywhere to go."

Xena sank back into the chair, the brief flare of hope curdling into something heavier, grief reopening like a wound that had never properly healed in the first place.

"Tell me what you remember about her," she said quietly. "Please."

Mira's expression softened, and for the next half hour, she spoke about a woman Xena had spent her entire life knowing almost nothing about, a fierce, quiet woman named Elena who'd arrived in the territory pregnant and alone, carrying a relic she refused to discuss with anyone outside a small circle of trusted allies. A woman who loved fiercely, laughed rarely, and disappeared one night without warning, leaving behind a toddler who would spend the next two decades believing she'd simply died like everyone said.

"She knew something was coming," Mira said. "In the weeks before she disappeared, she became paranoid, careful, like she expected an attack any day. She started teaching me things to remember, in case anything happened to her. Things about the pendant. Things about the bloodline."

"What things?"

Mira hesitated, glancing toward the doorway as though checking for eavesdroppers, before lowering her voice further. "The pendant isn't just a relic, Xena. It's a seal. Your family's bloodline has carried the responsibility of keeping something dangerous locked away for generations, something that, if released, could tip the balance of power between every supernatural faction in this territory."

"Released how?"

"I don't fully know. Your mother never had the chance to explain everything before she disappeared. But I know Blackthorn wants it released, not sealed. I know he's spent two decades hunting for whoever inherited the responsibility of keeping it locked."

The weight of it settled over Xena like a physical thing, pressing down on her chest until breathing felt like an effort. Every assumption she'd made about her life, her parents' deaths, her own unremarkable existence, the quiet anonymity she'd built so carefully in this city, collapsing into a truth far larger and more dangerous than anything she'd imagined.

A knock interrupted the heavy silence, and Ragnar appeared in the doorway, expression grim in a way that made Xena's stomach drop before he'd even spoken.

"We have a problem," he said.

"What kind of problem?" Mira asked, already rising from her chair.

"Kane just got word from a contact inside Blackthorn's territory. They know Xena's here." His gaze found Xena's, something fierce and protective sharpening behind his amber eyes. "They're moving tonight."

"Moving how?" Xena asked, voice tight with rising panic.

"I don't know the details yet. But I know Blackthorn doesn't send scouts for casual surveillance. If he's mobilizing this fast, it means he's done waiting." Ragnar crossed the room in three long strides, crouching in front of Xena's chair until they were eye level. "I need you to trust me completely for the next twelve hours. Can you do that?"

Xena's mind raced through everything she'd learned in the past two days,werewolves, ancient relics, a mother who might have been murdered, a man she'd known for barely forty eight hours asking for blind trust in the face of an enemy she couldn't even picture.

"Yes," she said, surprising herself with how steady the word came out. "What do we do?"

"We move you somewhere even more secure. And we prepare for the possibility that they're not just coming for the pendant."

"What else would they be coming for?"

Ragnar's jaw tightened, and the answer he gave settled over the room like a physical blow.

"You. Alive, if they can manage it. Dead, if they can't have you any other way."

A sound from outside cut through the tense silence, tires on gravel, multiple vehicles, moving fast and close.

Kane's voice rang out from somewhere near the front of the house, sharp with urgency that hadn't been there an hour earlier.

"Ragnar! They're here. They're already here!"