Chapter 10: The City of Glass and Ghost

The violet veins in my arm didn't just glow; they hummed, acting as a compass that pulled us deeper into the heart of the desolation. As we crossed the ridge of the Silent Mountains, the world changed again. We weren't in a forest anymore. We were standing on the edge of a vast, sunken crater that housed a city made of a substance that wasn't quite stone and wasn't quite light.

"Is that... home?" Jace whispered, his eyes wide.

Before us lay a sprawling metropolis of translucent spires and floating arches. It was beautiful, but it was the beauty of a tomb. There were no lights in the windows, no smoke from chimneys. It was a city of frozen glass, preserved in a pocket of time where the wind didn't blow and the sun never set.

"This is the Aethelgard," Kaelen breathed, his voice full of academic awe. "The lost capital of the First Shifters. Legend said it was swallowed by the earth during the Great Cleansing, but it wasn't swallowed. It was exiled."

"It’s beautiful," Thane remarked, his hand never leaving the hilt of his blade, "but it smells like the Weaver. Be careful where you step."

As we descended into the city streets, the violet veins on my arm pulsed violently. I felt a pull toward the center, toward a spire that rose higher than the rest, topped with a crown of dark, swirling energy.

"The Abyss Throne," I murmured. "It's there."

We moved through the streets like ghosts. The glass buildings reflected our images, but they were distorted. In the glass, I didn't see a girl in a shadow-fur cloak; I saw a creature of pure silver and violet light, her eyes twin voids of ancient power. My Mates, too, looked different in the reflections—Thane was a towering shadow-knight, Kaelen a weaver of green ley-lines, and Jace a flickering blade of wind.

Suddenly, the reflections stepped out of the glass.

"Illusions?" Thane growled, stepping in front of me.

"No," Kaelen warned, holding up a hand. "Echoes. The city is playing back the identities of those who enter. It’s a defense mechanism."

The glass-clones didn't attack. They stood in a row, blocking the path to the central spire. One of them—the reflection of me—stepped forward. Its voice was a chorus of a thousand whispers.

"To claim the throne, one must be empty," the Echo said. "Elora of the Silver Crest, you carry too much. You carry the love of a dead mother, the hate of a failed Alpha, and the hearts of three outcasts. You cannot sit upon the Abyss if you are tethered to the world."

"I am not here to sit upon it," I said, my voice cold and steady. "I am here to break it."

The Echo laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "To break the Abyss is to break yourself. You are the lock, Elora. If the lock is shattered, the door stays open forever."

"She’s not alone!" Jace shouted, launching himself at his own reflection.

The battle in the City of Glass was surreal. Every blow Thane struck against his echo was felt by him physically. When Kaelen cast a spell of binding, the glass-Kaelen cast the exact same spell, neutralizing the energy. They were fighting themselves, and they were losing because they were fighting with honor.

"Stop!" I screamed, the violet energy in my arm exploding outward in a wave of raw, chaotic force.

The Echoes froze. The violet light from my arm was different from their glass-light. It was "Deprivation"—it didn't mimic, it siphoned. I began to draw the energy out of the glass-clones, watching as they turned from translucent figures into dull, gray statues before shattering into dust.

I stood in the center of the street, my chest heaving, the violet light now crawling up my neck. I looked at my Mates. They were bruised, their spirits frayed by the encounter with their own shadows.

"She’s right," I whispered, looking at the central spire. "The throne is a vacuum. It wants me to give up everything that makes me human so I can become a perfect vessel for the dark."

Thane walked over to me, his face bloody but his eyes burning with a fierce, stubborn light. He grabbed my hand—the one with the violet veins—and laced his fingers through mine.

"Then don't be a vessel," he said. "Be an anchor. If the throne wants to pull you into the Abyss, let it try. We are the ones holding the rope."

Kaelen and Jace stepped up, each placing a hand on my shoulders. The four-way bond, which had started as a means of survival, now felt like a physical chain of gold and silver, anchoring me to the reality of the earth.

"We go in together," Jace said.

We approached the Great Spire. The doors were made of solid shadow, but as I reached out, the violet veins on my arm acted as a key. The shadows parted, revealing a hall of infinite darkness. At the far end, floating above a pool of liquid starlight, was the Abyss Throne.

It wasn't a chair. It was a rift in the shape of a seat, a tear in the fabric of the universe that was slowly widening.

And sitting beside it, waiting for us, was someone I hadn't expected to see.

"Mother?" I gasped.

The woman standing by the rift turned. She looked exactly like the woman from my faded memories, but her eyes were not the warm brown I remembered. They were a solid, terrifying violet.

"Hello, Elora," she said, her voice like a lullaby sung in a graveyard. "You're just in time. The door is almost heavy enough to fall."