Chapter 21
1086 Words
The air inside was unnaturally warm.
Their footsteps echoed through a vast circular hall lined with statues. Each statue depicted a woman wearing a crown of silver branches, her face worn smooth by centuries of erosion.
Freya stopped beside the nearest one.
“Are these all the First Luna?”
“No,” Xavier said. “They represent the keepers who guarded the sanctuary.”
“Women?”
“According to the surviving records.”
“Of course.” She looked at him. “And who guarded them?”
“The royal Lycan line.”
Freya glanced at his wrist.
“So the women guarded the truth, and the kings guarded the women?”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“What’s yours?”
Xavier studied the statues. “That someone decided the truth needed guards.”
Before Freya could respond, a whisper slipped through the hall.
Silver blood.
She spun around.
“Did you hear that?”
Xavier raised his blade. “Hear what?”
The whisper came again, this time from beneath their feet.
You have returned.
Freya stumbled backward.
The silver mark on her wrist blazed, illuminating the runes carved into the floor. One by one, they awakened, forming a path toward a narrow corridor at the far end of the hall.
Xavier caught her elbow before she fell.
“Can you control it?”
“No.”
“Then don’t fight it. Tell me what you feel.”
She closed her eyes.
The warmth. The pressure. The strange sorrow that seemed to live inside the stone.
And beneath everything, a sensation that frightened her more than the whispers.
Recognition.
“Someone was here,” she said. “Not recently. A long time ago. Someone was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Freya opened her eyes.
“Of the king.”
Xavier went still.
Before he could speak, the floor trembled.
A section of the wall slid aside, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
Cold air rushed upward, carrying the unmistakable scent of blood.
Fresh blood.
Xavier moved in front of her.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Freya, this is not the time to argue.”
“Then stop giving me reasons.”
He stared at her for a moment before turning toward the staircase.
They descended together.
At the bottom lay a chamber much smaller than the hall above. Its walls were covered with inscriptions, some written in ancient wolf script, others in a language Freya somehow understood without ever having learned it.
In the center stood a stone pedestal.
Upon it rested a broken silver crown.
Freya approached slowly.
The moment she came within arm’s reach, the black mark on her wrist split with a flash of pain.
She gasped.
The chamber vanished.
For one heartbeat, she stood in the same room as it had been centuries earlier.
A woman with silver hair knelt beside the pedestal. Her clothes were stained with blood, and a golden chain wound around her throat. Before her stood a man wearing the crown of the Lycan kings.
His face was hidden behind a dark veil.
“You promised to protect it,” the woman whispered.
“I promised to protect my kingdom.”
“You promised both.”
The man raised his hand.
Golden light wrapped around the woman’s wrists.
She screamed.
Freya felt the pain as if it belonged to her.
Then the woman lifted her head, and Freya saw her face.
The same silver eyes.
The same features that had watched her from the mirror.
Remember what they took from you.
The vision shattered.
Freya collapsed against the pedestal, dragging in a breath.
Xavier caught her before she hit the floor.
“Freya!”
She clutched his coat, trembling. “The oath was changed.”
His face had gone pale.
“What did you see?”
“A woman. A king. He used the oath against her.”
Xavier looked toward the broken crown.
“No,” he whispered.
Freya forced herself upright. “You knew something was wrong.”
“I knew the records were incomplete. I didn’t know”
“You knew your family had something to do with it.”
His silence was answer enough.
Anger flared through her exhaustion.
“You brought me here without telling me what your father made you promise.”
Xavier’s gaze snapped to hers.
“How do you know about my father?”
“I saw him in a memory. Or someone who looked like him. I don’t know.” She pressed a hand against her chest. “But this place remembers what your family did.”
The golden mark on Xavier’s wrist erupted with light.
He staggered.
For the first time since Freya had met him, his control visibly fractured. His pupils narrowed, his nails lengthened, and a low growl rolled through his chest.
“Xavier?”
“Get back.”
His voice was no longer entirely human.
The golden light spread up his forearm, forming branching lines beneath his skin. He clenched his fist, but the glow only intensified.
Freya reached for him instinctively.
The instant her fingers touched his wrist, silver light flowed between them.
The pain stopped.
Xavier drew a ragged breath. His claws slowly receded.
They stared at each other, their hands still joined.
Neither spoke of what the moment meant.
Neither dared to assume.
Then something struck the other side of the chamber wall.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
The broken crown shuddered on its pedestal.
Freya turned toward the sound.
A line of black light appeared between two ancient stones. It widened, revealing a door that had been hidden behind the wall.
Across its surface were two symbols: a silver crescent and a golden wolf.
Beneath them, words appeared in the ancient language.
Freya could read them.
Her stomach turned cold.
“Xavier…”
He followed her gaze.
“What does it say?”
She swallowed.
“The king shall keep the prisoner. The heir shall keep the truth.”
The hidden door unlocked.
Something on the other side inhaled.
And then a woman’s voice, identical to the one in Freya’s dreams, whispered from the darkness.
“Finally. The silver heir has come.”
A pause.
Then the voice spoke again.
“But you brought the wrong king.”
Xavier raised his blade.
Behind the door, chains began to break.
And from somewhere deep beneath the sanctuary, something ancient spoke the name of the man who had ruled before Xavier was born.
“Alaric.”
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD