Chapter Seven
1955 Words
The darkness didn’t just swallow me, it pulled me into itself, folding my body in like I was never meant to exist in the light. It was soundless at first, except for my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, reminding me I was still alive. But barely.
I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn't move. Tried to shift, but my wolf was locked behind a door I couldn't find anymore.
It felt like hours passed before I realized I was floating. Not falling, not flying. Just suspended in a void of cold silence.
Then… a whisper.
“Lyra.”
I turned, jerked, really, toward the voice, even though I couldn’t see anything. Just black on black. But it was familiar. Feminine. Soft. So soft it scraped against my bones.
“Mother?” I asked. My voice came out fractured, like broken glass.
She didn’t answer.
Instead, the darkness cracked, splintering like a mirror struck with a hammer. And through the fissures, I saw them. Memories. My childhood. My mother’s soft hands weaving flower crowns into my hair. My father lifting me high on his shoulders. Elias, before the weight of the curse etched grief into his soul. Laughing. Whole.
Then the images shifted, twisted. My mother screaming as she burned. My father’s blood on his killer’s hands. Elias, chained and screaming, eyes turning black as shadows devoured him.
I shut my eyes, but the visions burned through my lids.
“Make it stop,” I whispered.
“You have to remember,” the voice whispered again.
“I don’t want to.”
“You must. To break the chain, you must see it all.”
The dark burst into light.
I landed hard, on stone, again. But this time, I was in a different place. The cavern was gone. In its place, a grand hall stretched around me. Ancient and forgotten, with walls lined with broken weapons and scorched banners. My feet wobbled underneath me, but I stood. Slowly.
It looked like a throne room, but it had been abandoned for centuries. Dust layered the floor like snow, and high above, the roof had been ripped away. Moonlight poured in through the crumbled ceiling, bathing the broken throne in silver.
Something shifted in the shadows.
I wasn’t alone.
I turned slowly. My wolf stirred inside me, still weak, but present. Alert.
Out of the shadows stepped a figure. A woman. Cloaked in silver and black, her hair wild as the wind, her eyes glowing with lunar fire.
“You are late,” she said. Her voice was neither kind nor cruel. Simply a fact.
“Who are you?”
“I am the Moon’s memory.”
My breath hitched. I’d heard of her, in myths, mostly. The living echo of the original Luna, left behind to guide or to destroy.
“Why am I here?”
“To awaken. Truly.”
I swallowed hard. “Elias needs me.”
“He always did,” she said, stepping closer. “And you failed him once.”
I flinched.
“But you may not fail him again. If you survive what comes next.”
I lifted my chin. “What must I do?”
She gestured to the throne. “Sit.”
I approached it slowly. The stone seat pulsed with ancient energy. As I touched it, pain exploded in my chest, sharp and blinding. A scream ripped from my throat, and light burst from the cracks in the floor.
The woman didn’t move. “Your bloodline was forged in betrayal. Your crown, buried beneath bones. Your wolf has been caged not by magic, but by fear.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You are. But that can change. Sit. Face your fear.”
I did.
And the moment I sat down, I saw her.
The one who killed my mother.
Dark robes. A half-burned face. Eyes like poison.
The witch.
She stood across the hall, watching me. Smiling.
“You remember me now,” she said, her voice thick with venom. “You were there. You saw it all. But you ran.”
“I was a child.”
“You were Evercrest.”
And suddenly, I did remember.
I remembered hiding behind the tapestries, my small hands clamped over my mouth to stop the screams. I remembered the fire. My mother’s voice, chanting one last spell to keep me hidden. Her death. My silence.
I hadn’t just lost my mother. I had let her die.
The throne trembled under me. The woman, the Moon’s memory, watched silently.
“You buried it,” she said. “You locked it away, but it ruled you all the same.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “How do I fix it?”
“By becoming what you were born to be.”
She raised her hand, and from it, a blade of moonlight formed, hovering in the air between us.
“Every queen must bleed for her crown.”
I reached out. My fingers closed around the hilt, and the blade burned, searing into my skin. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to let go.
The woman smiled.
The blade vanished.
And in its place, a howl erupted from deep within me, raw, feral. My wolf burst forth, free and blazing with white fire. My fur shimmered silver beneath the moon’s gaze. My body cracked and shifted, bones healing, power roaring in my veins.
I howled.
The hall trembled.
Then, darkness again.
But this time, it wasn’t consuming me. I was riding through it. My new form tearing through the shadows, hunting.
And I smelled him.
Elias.
I landed back in the cavern, mid-shift, my body burning with the change.
Elias stood in the center of the room. Still as stone. Eyes black.
But when he turned this time, there was something new behind them. Recognition. A flicker.
“Lyra,” he said, voice hoarse.
“Yes,” I whispered, stepping forward. “It’s me.”
He flinched, shaking his head. “I can’t hold it back. It’s inside me. It wants you dead.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’m not leaving you.”
The shadows writhed around him like snakes. The figure from before, the hooded man, appeared once more.
“You think your awakening changes anything?” he spat. “You’re too late. His fate is sealed.”
“No,” I said, my voice steel now. “I won’t let you have him.”
I leapt toward the man, power blazing in my veins. My hand met his chest, and light burst from my palm, knocking him back.
He growled, inhuman. His hood fell back, revealing a face I hadn’t expected.
Ronan.
My cousin.
The one I’d buried ten years ago.
“No,” I gasped, heart cracking. “You’re dead.”
“Clearly not,” he sneered. “But you will be.”
The cavern shuddered.
Elias screamed.
And the shadows rushed us both.
The shadows didn’t just lunge, they screamed.
They rose like smoke-fueled serpents, twisting around us with malevolent hunger. Elias dropped to his knees, clawing at his head as if trying to tear the darkness out from inside. His veins glowed black beneath his skin. His wolf, once radiant, once powerful, was caged inside him, howling in agony.
And Ronan… gods.
Ronan was no longer the cousin I’d buried beneath Evercrest soil. His body bore the same frame, but his eyes were vacant pits, glowing with infernal fire. A cruel smirk tugged at his lips, warping his once-familiar face.
“Why?” I demanded, my voice hoarse with fury. “Why did you fake your death?”
“I didn’t fake it,” he said, stepping closer. “I died. But death is no prison for those chosen by the old gods. And I was chosen, Lyra. Not you.”
He raised his hand. The cavern trembled. Stone cracked beneath my feet. Power leaked from him in waves, ugly, corrupted.
“You were supposed to die that day, too. Mother made sure of it. But somehow, you lived. And now… you’ve ruined everything.”
“She died because of you,” I spat. “You turned on our family.”
“No,” he hissed, stepping into the glow of the flickering torches. “They turned on me. They gave everything to you. The precious Evercrest name. The prophecy. The training. The love. And left me to rot with scraps.”
“Because you weren’t meant to rule.”
“I was meant to destroy.”
The words struck cold.
Elias screamed again. This time, it wasn’t pain. It was rage. Pure and primal.
“Lyra…” he rasped, lifting his head. “Run.”
I didn’t move.
“I can’t hold it. The beast… it’s stronger than me. He’ll hurt you.”
“Then fight him.”
“I’ve tried!” He slammed his fist against the ground, sending cracks radiating out from the impact. “Every second is a war in my mind. He whispers. He takes pieces. And Ronan feeds him.”
Ronan grinned. “He’s perfect, isn’t he? A king cursed with a demon too powerful to control. And now, with your return, the prophecy tightens around your neck like a noose.”
“I don’t care about the prophecy.”
“But it cares about you.”
He snapped his fingers.
Chains burst from the ground, slamming into my wrists and yanking me backward. I crashed into the cavern wall, pain flaring through my body. I shifted instinctively, my wolf snarling, trying to break free, but the silver burned through my skin.
Elias roared, and for a moment, just one, his eyes flashed gold.
“Let her go,” he growled.
“Oh,” Ronan cooed, “I think she’ll stay right there. After all, you’ll need an anchor while you fall apart.”
He turned to Elias and thrust both hands forward. Darkness surged from his palms, spiraling like a black storm straight into Elias’s chest.
Elias convulsed.
His head snapped back. His spine arched.
And then he began to shift, but not into the form I remembered.
His body doubled in size, fur erupting like wildfire, black as night. His limbs twisted into monstrous proportions, and when his head snapped forward again, his eyes were pure void. No trace of Elias. Just the demon.
“No,” I whispered. “Please, not like this.”
Ronan laughed.
The beast lunged toward me.
But something in me broke free.
Not fear.
Fury.
I roared. My wolf burst through the silver chains, searing flesh and stone, and I shifted mid-air, colliding with the creature that used to be Elias. We tumbled across the ground in a snarl of claws and teeth. I fought him, not to kill him, but to reach him.
“Elias!” I screamed through the bond, pushing everything I felt into that single word. “Come back to me!”
The beast hesitated.
Just a flicker.
And in that space, I saw him, his true self, trapped in a sea of black.
He looked at me.
“Lyra?”
“I’m here,” I whispered.
But Ronan wasn’t done.
He raised a blade, curved and ancient, black as obsidian, and began to chant. The same ritual my mother tried to stop all those years ago.
I turned, lunging for him, but I was too slow.
The blade plunged into the ground.
Light and shadow collided.
The cavern shattered.
I screamed as the ground disappeared beneath us, and I fell into the abyss again, but this time, Elias was falling beside me.
And Ronan’s voice echoed through the void:
“This time, you stay dead.”
- Writer
