Chapter Six: The Price of Awakening

The darkness felt heavy, like a weight pressing down on them. It swallowed the weak light from their torch, making the stone walls feel close and suffocating. 

Liora’s steps echoed, with every beat, she felt the journal’s weight burning hotter, like it wanted to leap from her grasp and root itself in the ground.

Ash stayed close, his body tense, ready for anything. Behind them, the howling had stopped. Now there was just a scraping sound, like someone dragging chains.

“Faster,” he murmured, but there was nowhere to run because every direction felt like it turned in on itself.

The wall was covered in strange carvings she didn’t recognize.m, the air got colder and the journal seemed to pulse in rhythm with Ash’s heartbeat.

Suddenly, Liora stopped, something was caught between the broken stones, it was a small piece of parchment. She picked it up before she even thought about it.

The parchment had three words written in silver ink: "FORGOTTEN. BOUND. AWAKEN."

A cold feeling went down her spine. 

“What is it?” 

Ash asked, his voice low.

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” A warning, or…a message.” 

The ground trembled under their feet, not enough to knock them down.

“Let’s keep moving,” Ash said, as he took the lead, every muscle vibrating with anticipation.

They entered a round room, where the air shimmered faintly with a quiet energy and faint symbols glowed on the walls. 

At the center stood an ancient, fancy mirror, its surface rippling like water, the mirror did not show their reflections, but flickers glimpses of memory,moonlight battles, hands clasped in oath, blood running over carved stone.

 Shadows moved on the other side of the glass, he glanced at her: 

“It’s the Heart of the Den. “It’s ancient.”

Then a whisper came, clear as day. “Serelai…” It was her name. 

The mirror’s surface bulged and Liora reflexively clutched the journal tighter as the marks on her wrist began to burn.

She stepped forward, unable to resist. Her own reflection changed no longer Liora, but a woman crowned in silver fire, eyes burning with moonlight.

 The mirror was pulling at her, calling to a deep part of her she’d never fully understood.

“Liora!” Ash shouted.

But it was too late, the mirror's pull was too strong.

 The world tilted, she was standing in another time, suddenly she stood on a battlefield under the full moon, blood on the grass and wolves circling.

She saw Kael, wounded, a dagger in his hand, Ashiel beside her but he was different, he wore ancient armor, his eyes wild with battle fury.

She staggered, breathless, as the vision melted into another, this time she heard her grandmother’s voice in the darkness clear and firm: “You are not only what the blood makes you, child. Destiny is chosen, do not let their war consume you.” 

The ground shook harder. Ash cursed, grabbing her arm. He drew her back, away from the mirror, that ancient magic broke with a sound like cracking ice, and she was back in the silent room, gasping.

But everything had changed. New symbols now burned on her wrist, fresh memories layered over reality.

“Are you okay?” Ash asked, steadying her.

She nodded, uncertain. “I saw it, all of it. Their war. My blood. I think the mirror tried to trap something inside me.”

Suddenly, a gust of freezing air swept through the room, turning the blue flames white.

From the far side, someone staggered into the light, a young boy, pale, eyes wide, clutching something to his chest.

Liora ran to him, Ash right behind her. The boy was cold as ice, around his neck was a silver chain with a rune on it, exactly like the new mark on Liora’s wrist.

“A messenger,” Ash whispered. “Or a trap.”

The boy’s lips moved, Liora bent low to hear his words. Voice trembling, he gasped; 

“The pack is not what you think…”, his voice fainted. “The wolf queen rises. She waits. She must not…”

His words faded into nothing. He was gone.

Ash’s eyes flashed gold. “Wolf queen? I thought Drysana was just a guardian.”

Liora stared at the rune, its glow dying out. “No. She’s more than that.”

A grinding noise broke the silence and from the mirrored wall, cracks spread across the mirror, figures made of shadow and bone began to push through mirror-wraiths, guardians of forgotten secrets.

Ash pulled Liora behind him. “Stay back. Don’t look at them.”

But the wraiths didn’t attack, they just circled, chanting in a low, ancient language that felt familiar in a way Liora couldn’t explain.

From within their midst, Drysana herself stepped from among them. She looked different, powerful, her eyes burning white. Her voice echoed everywhere.

“You have awakened the price of memory, Serelai. What you saw was yours to see but what comes next is for everyone”.

“ What will you pay to settle this debt?”

Ash moved to shield Liora, but the wraiths’ chant made movement heavy, like walking through deep water.

Liora raised the journal but Drysana’s hand rose, freezing her in place. “Not every curse is broken by fire. Some are paid in blood.”

Suddenly Kael’s laugh echoed above them. He appeared standing on a broken pillar, smirking full of mockery and longing.

“So, sister,” he called, “Ready to make a deal with gods and monsters?”

Drysana’s gaze flickered between Ash, Kael, and Liora. “One must answer the old promise. Who will pay the price for awakening the wolf queen’s magic?”

Kael shrugged. “She woke it. She can pay for it or die trying.”

Ash stepped forward, furious. “No one is dying tonight. Not her.

”Drysana smiled, a cruel thin expression. “Very well, protector. Let’s see how much you can endure.”

She lifted her arms. The room seemed to warp and bend. Stone and flame twisted together swallowing the walls. 

A vision slammed into Liora’s mind. She saw Drysana’s true form, a tall cruel woman crowned in bone and shadow, betraying the old Moonblood queen and pain of broken promises shattered by fire and war.

Liora gasped, the mark on her wrist burning hotter than ever. She felt the history pouring through her skin, agony and triumph mixing until she could barely see.

Ash held onto her, his voice firm in her ear. “Liora, hang on, look at me. Stay with me.”

Kael watched hungrily, waiting.

Drysana’s voice boomed through every echo, “Choose, daughter of the divine! Blood or magic. But not: the pack does not break for promises , only for truth.”

The room flashed with blue light. The mirror shattered entirely, wraiths spun outwards, howling. The rune around the boy’s neck lifted into the air and burned itself in Liora’s skin, joining the others marking her fate.

Suddenly, silence. The room was whole again. The boy was gone, Drysana had vanished, the wraiths only shadows shrinking against the walls.

Ash staggered, pulling Liora to her feet. “What just happened?”

She shook her head, voice raw. “She gave me something. Or… took something. I don’t think the debt is paid.”

Kael dropped down landing in front of them.

 “Clever girl”. 

But are you clever enough for what comes next?

He glanced sideways, behind him, the corridor burned with white flame, sealing every exit.

“That’s the price of awakening,” he said softly.

 “Once you wake magic this deep, you can never put it back to sleep.”

The white fire shifted, forming a doorway. Kael stepped aside. 

“After you?”,  

Ash gripped his dagger. “Don’t trust him.”

Liora looked at the burning door, Kael's sharp smile, and the darkness behind them.

She placed her hand in Ash’s, locking eyes with him, but fear and determination warred in her chest.

Kael nodded, a sharp smile. “You remember more every hour, little queen. Soon you’ll choose me, or you’ll choose your own destruction.”

He stepped into the fire, disappearing.

The flames turned violet.

Ash tightened his hold, voice trembling but fierce. “Whatever’s on the other side, we face it together.”

Liora took a deep breath and stepped forward, pulling Ash with her into the burning doorway.

 The symbols on Liora’s skin glowed brightly as new images flooded her mind: forests full of wolves with silver eyes, thrones made of bone, allies and enemies unseen and a war waking up that no one could possibly stop.

And somewhere in the heart of the fire, she knew the wolf queen was waiting.

As the flames swallowed their forms, the last thing Liora saw was Kael’s eyes watching, waiting, and the chilling certainty: not all legacies bring salvation. 

Some demand blood.