Chapter 10 —- The Wish That Changed Everything
1882 Words
The stranger offered nothing.
Rowan stepped forward, refusing to be intimidated.
"I don't know who you are," he said, his voice steady. "But she's badly injured. She needs treatment. I'll take her back to the Moon Shadow Pack. Our healer can save her."
The stranger's eyes hardened.
"You will do no such thing."
His voice never rose.
It didn't have to. It wasn't a threat.
It sounded like an order the world itself had no choice but to obey.
Rowan's jaw clenched.
"I'm afraid that isn't your decision."
He lowered his stance, planting his feet firmly against the slippery stone.
"I don't care whether you're a rogue, a mercenary, or the kingdom's most wanted criminal."
His grip tightened around the spear.
"I won't leave an unconscious woman here to die."
For several long moments...
No one moved.
Rain poured between them like a curtain dividing two different worlds.
Lightning split the heavens.
Rowan attacked.
Years of training guided the thrust of his spear, driving the iron tip straight toward the stranger's chest with deadly precision.
The masked man barely moved.
He shifted only slightly.
The spear sliced through empty air.
Rowan's eyes widened.
Before he could recover, the stranger's hand shot forward.
His fingers wrapped effortlessly around the wooden shaft.
Twist.
A deafening c***k shattered the silence.
The thick hardwood spear splintered in his hand as though it had been nothing more than a dry branch.
Disbelief flashed across Rowan's face.
Impossible.
No ordinary man possessed that kind of strength.
He instinctively stumbled backward — too late.
The stranger drove a single elbow into Rowan's ribs.
A sickening thud echoed through the ruins.
Agony exploded through Rowan's side.
The impact lifted him completely off the ground before hurling him across the courtyard.
He slammed into an ancient moss-covered pillar with enough force to fracture the weathered stone.
The pillar groaned. Fragments rained down around him as he collapsed beside the deer he had hunted only moments earlier.
His lantern flew from his grasp.
It struck the ground. Its flame flickered desperately...
Then the rain smothered it.
Darkness swallowed the ruins. Lightning flashed again.
For one blinding heartbeat, the silver mask gleamed like polished steel.
Ivy screamed.
Terror overwhelmed her.
She turned and ran.
She managed only two frantic steps.
A hand closed around her wrist.
She froze.
The grip wasn't painful.
It was simply inescapable.
"I gave you one instruction."
His voice remained unnervingly calm.
"You failed."
"I didn't betray you!" Ivy cried. "I never wanted this to happen!"
The stranger studied her in silence.
Then, without warning, he released her with a firm shove.
She stumbled backward.
Her feet slipped across the rain-slick stones.
She crashed into the mud beside the scattered jewels, the jeweled necklace sinking halfway beneath dirty water.
The fall knocked the breath from her lungs.
She struggled to rise.
Her trembling arms refused to obey.
The stranger looked from Ivy to Rowan.
"If either of you speaks of what happened here tonight..."
His gaze settled on Rowan with chilling certainty.
"...you will not live long enough to regret it."
No one answered.
The rain spoke for them.
Without another word, he turned toward the unconscious woman.
Avana.
Rainwater shimmered across her pale face. Blood streaked one side of her temple, diluted by the endless downpour. Her lips had turned almost colorless from the cold, and each shallow breath seemed weaker than the last.
For the first time that night...
The stranger's movements changed.
The cold precision vanished.
With remarkable care, he drew the soaked cloak tightly around her before slipping one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her knees.
He lifted her as though she weighed nothing.
Yet every movement was astonishingly gentle.
When he finally spoke, the steel in his voice had disappeared.
"I can't leave you here anymore."
His eyes shifted toward the forest.
Something had caught his attention.
His expression sharpened.
He was listening to something neither Rowan nor Ivy could hear.
"They've already begun searching."
The words were almost a whisper.
A heartbeat passed.
"I have to take you far away..."
"...before they find you."
Without another glance at Rowan or Ivy, he disappeared into the storm.
The rain swallowed him.
Within moments, every footprint vanished beneath the downpour.
It was as though neither he nor Avana had ever existed.
Only a shattered spear...
An extinguished lantern...
And two shaken witnesses remained.
For a long time, neither Rowan nor Ivy spoke.
The storm raged without mercy.
At last, Rowan forced himself upright, every breath sending sharp pain through his battered ribs.
His eyes never left the place where the stranger had disappeared.
His face had gone deathly pale.
"No..."
The word barely escaped his lips.
"It can't be."
Ivy turned toward him, confusion replacing her fear.
"What is it?"
Rowan swallowed hard.
"That fighting style..."
His voice trembled.
"I've only heard stories about it."
Another flash of lightning illuminated the empty ruins.
"There was only one man in the entire kingdom who could defeat an armed hunter..."
"...without ever drawing a weapon."
His breathing became shallow.
His fingers tightened against the broken remains of his spear.
"But that's impossible."
His eyes slowly lifted toward the dark forest beyond the ruins.
"Because the man I just fought..."
"... I can't remember where I know him from."
Morning arrived quietly over the hidden temple tucked deep within the forgotten reaches of the Moon Fang Pack.
The forest awakened one gentle breath at a time.
Mist drifted lazily between towering pine trees, wrapping ancient stone pillars in a veil of silver. Dew shimmered like scattered diamonds upon wild grass, while the distant murmur of cascading waterfalls blended with birdsong into a melody so peaceful that it almost felt unreal.
Inside the abandoned temple, where cracked walls and weathered carvings silently guarded countless forgotten secrets, Havana slowly opened her eyes.
For a long moment, she simply lay still.
Something was different.
For years, every morning had greeted her with the same familiar ache, a crushing emptiness that settled deep inside her chest before she had even fully awakened. It was the loneliness of someone who had never truly belonged. The loneliness of a girl who had spent nineteen years wondering why fate had singled her out for suffering.
But today… that emptiness wasn't there.
Instead, another feeling lingered within her.
A warmth smile, yet impossible to ignore.
As memories of the previous night returned, her fingers unconsciously curled against the worn blanket covering her.
The silver-masked stranger.
She had never seen his face. She didn't know his name.
She didn't even know whether destiny would ever allow their paths to cross again.
Yet somehow… his quiet voice still echoed inside her heart.
His calm eyes. His gentle patience.
The kindness he had shown a broken stranger without asking for anything in return.
It made no sense.
She should have feared him.
She should have questioned his intentions.
Instead...
Whenever she remembered him, the fear inside her faded, replaced by a strange sense of comfort she had never experienced before.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips before exhaustion gently pulled her back beneath the surface of sleep.
She found herself standing beneath an endless blue sky.
Warm sunlight poured across a vast meadow that stretched farther than her eyes could follow, transforming every blade of grass into shimmering emerald silk. A soft breeze wandered through fields of colorful wildflowers, carrying the sweet fragrance of blossoms and fresh earth.
The world felt impossibly peaceful and beautiful, untouched by pain.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Havana laughed.
Not the restrained laugh she offered others to hide her suffering.
A real bright one.
Free and weightless.
Her laughter danced across the meadow as her eyes landed on an enormous wild grape tree growing not far away.
Its thick branches bent beneath clusters of ripe, deep-purple grapes that glistened temptingly beneath the morning sun.
"They look delicious..."
Grinning, she hurried toward the tree.
Standing on her toes, she stretched as high as she could.
Her fingers missed the nearest cluster by several inches.
"Oh..."
She stepped back.
"I can reach them."
Taking a small running start, she jumped.
Still too short.
She landed with an exaggerated sigh before trying again.
"No fair..."
She laughed to herself.
"Grow a little lower."
Once more she leaped, stretching both hands toward the dangling fruit.
Still nothing.
She folded her arms dramatically and narrowed her eyes at the stubborn grapes as though they had personally offended her.
"You win..."
Just as she prepared to try again...
Something else caught her attention.
Beyond the ancient grape tree stood a towering wall completely hidden beneath thick emerald-green vines.
The vines climbed so densely that not a single stone could be seen beneath them.
She frowned.
"Was that always there?"
Her curiosity quickly replaced every thought of grapes.
Slowly, almost cautiously, Havana walked toward the mysterious wall.
The closer she came, the stranger it felt.
The air itself seemed quieter.
The breeze slowed.
Even the birds had stopped singing.
Following the vine-covered barrier, she rounded one corner — and stopped so abruptly that her breath caught in her throat.
Before her stood a mountain unlike anything she had ever imagined.
It towered above the clouds, its snow-covered peak disappearing into the heavens themselves.
Ancient silver symbols shimmered across its rocky surface, glowing softly like living stars carved into stone.
They pulsed almost slowly of like a heartbeat.
Havana stared in silent awe.
The mountain didn't feel lifeless.
It felt aware.
Watching her. Waiting for her.
A strange pull tightened inside her chest.
Every instinct warned her to stay where she was.
Yet another gentle, irresistible force almost comforting urged her forward.
Step by careful step, she approached until she stood at the foot of the enormous mountain.
Her breathing became shallow.
Her fingers trembled.
"I shouldn't..."
She whispered the words, but even as she spoke them, her hand slowly lifted.
Almost as though it no longer belonged to her.
The instant her fingertips brushed the ancient stone—
BOOM!
A blinding explosion of silver light erupted before her.
The force of it swept through the valley like a tidal wave.
The earth trembled.
Wind roared in every direction.
Countless glowing runes spiraled through the air before gathering into a magnificent circle of shimmering light.
A portal.
Its radiance was so brilliant that it illuminated every flower, every tree, every distant hillside beneath an ocean of silver.
Havana instinctively shielded her eyes.
Her heart pounded violently against her ribs.
She should have run.
Every sensible thought screamed at her to turn back.
Instead… she took one cautious step forward.
Then another.
Finally… she crossed the glowing threshold.
The instant both feet entered—
The portal snapped shut behind her with a deafening c***k.
Silence, absolute silence.
The meadow.
The mountain.
The wind.
Everything vanished.
She stood alone inside an endless white void that seemed to stretch beyond infinity.
"H-Hello?"
Only the sound of her own voice answered.
She turned slowly.
Nothing.
Not a shadow. Not a single living soul.
A chill crawled up her spine.
Then… a deep ancient powerful voice.
Powerful enough to make the empty world tremble.
Tell me... speak your deepest desire.
What is your greatest wish?"
- Writer
