Chapter 5

Aria’s heart hammered so loudly she wondered if they could hear it echoing through the stone walls.

The prophecy.

The word sat between them like a lit match dropped into dry leaves—dangerous, bright, ready to set her entire life on fire.

“I don’t understand,” Aria whispered, her voice thin. “What prophecy? Why—why are you looking at me like that?”

The shadow-woman lowered her gaze, almost in awe. “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.”

“You did,” Erevan said evenly, though there was no true anger in his tone. Only warning. “Leave us.”

“But the Council—”

“I said leave.”

The woman bowed her head and slipped out, the door closing softly behind her.

Silence expanded in the chamber, thick and pulsing.

Aria pulled the blanket higher around herself, suddenly aware of how small she felt in a room built for something ancient and powerful.

“Erevan…” She swallowed. “What prophecy?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

He moved instead—slowly rising from the edge of the bed, clasping his hands behind his back, and turning toward one of the tall obsidian columns carved with symbols she didn’t recognize. Shadows slid after him like smoke drawn toward heat.

“Your arrival was… unexpected,” he began, voice steady, controlled. “But not impossible.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“It tells you enough for this moment,” he murmured.

Aria frowned. “No. No, it doesn’t. I deserve to know why she looked at me like—like I was something she’d been waiting her entire life to see.”

He turned his head a little, just enough for her to catch the faintest flicker of conflict in his expression.

“You deserve answers,” he admitted. “I am simply deciding which ones will help you… and which will break you.”

Her breath hitched. “I’m already broken.”

Erevan turned fully to her.

He knelt again, one knee on the ground, as if approaching a wounded creature who might bolt if he moved too quickly.

“You are hurt,” he corrected softly. “But you are not broken. Not anymore.”

Aria’s throat tightened at the quiet conviction in his voice.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Please.”

Erevan studied her for a long moment, his gaze tracing her expression like he was memorizing every tremor of emotion.

Then, finally, he exhaled.

“Fine.” He lifted a hand, shadows rising with it until they hovered in the air like ink suspended in water. “I will show you.”

He extended his hand toward her, palm open.

Aria hesitated. “Is this going to hurt?”

“No,” he said. Then paused. “It will only reflect what already hurts.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

But something in his voice—the softness, the sincerity—made her reach out anyway.

Her fingertips touched his.

The world shifted.

Not violently. Not with pain.

But with a ripple, like fabric being pulled gently into another shape.

The obsidian chamber dissolved.

Darkness wrapped around them—warm, soft, infinite—and then a single thread of light pierced through it. It twisted in the air like a strand of silver silk.

“What is this?” Aria whispered.

“The Shadow Veil,” Erevan murmured beside her. “A place where memory and fate meet.”

The silver thread brightened—

split—

and turned into two glowing paths that floated before them like rivers made of moonlight.

One path radiated pure wolf energy—familiar, warm, instinctive.

Aria felt her heart tug toward it.

The other path hummed with ancient power—deeper, older, darker. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat, as if it knew her.

“Two lineages,” she murmured without understanding how she knew.

“Yes,” Erevan said. “Two bloodlines woven into one soul.”

Aria stared. “But that’s impossible. Wolves don’t—”

“Wolves don’t,” he agreed. “But the first Shadowbringers were not only wolves.”

Shadowbringers.

The word thrummed through her chest like a secret knocking on a locked door.

“I’m not—” Aria shook her head. “I’m just an omega. I’m not… this.”

“Your pack called you omega,” he said gently. “They named you by what they believed you could be. Not what you are.”

Her breath faltered.

The silver light intensified, casting soft glimmers across Erevan’s face.

“Your ancestor,” he continued, “was born from the union of a wolf priestess and a Shadow King long before my time. Their bloodline vanished into the wolf realm… until now.”

Aria stared at him, stunned. “You’re saying I’m—what? Part… shadow?”

Erevan’s eyes darkened, glowing faintly. “You are the only known descendant of both realms. The one foretold to bridge them.”

Her pulse stuttered. “Bridge them… how?”

“That,” he murmured, “is why the Council fears you.”

Aria stiffened. “They fear me?”

“They fear what you represent.”

“I don’t represent anything. I’m no one.”

Erevan stepped closer, shadows curling protectively around them.

“Aria,” he said, his voice barely above a breath, “if you truly were no one, I would not have felt you crying from an entire realm away.”

Her eyes widened.

He continued gently:

“I would not have torn the veil for the first time in a century.”

“I would not have crossed into a world that hates mine.”

“And I would not have felt your pain as if it were my own.”

A soft tremor ran under Aria’s skin.

The silver paths flickered—one warm, one dark—and both tilted toward her like living things recognizing their source.

“When the rift opened,” Erevan whispered, “every prophecy written in shadow stirred.”

“What… do they say?” she asked, barely hearing her own voice.

“That a girl born of light and darkness will rise between two realms.”

“That she will suffer a betrayal that opens her dormant power.”

“That she will call the King’s shadow—and he will answer.”

Her lips parted in disbelief.

“The King’s shadow…” she echoed.

Erevan’s gaze found hers, unblinking.

“You called me,” he said quietly. “Whether you realized it or not.”

“I didn’t call—”

“Your soul did.”

He reached up, brushing a single strand of hair from her cheek with a touch so soft it sent warmth flooding down her spine.

“And I came,” he murmured.

Aria’s breath left her in a shiver.

The silver light dimmed, the shadow world dissolving around them like mist as the real chamber reformed.

Aria blinked as the bed, stone walls, and moonlit air returned.

Her hand was still in his.

The prophecy still echoed in her ears.

And before her spinning thoughts could settle, a frantic pounding hit the chamber door.

“Your Majesty!” a guard shouted from outside. “The Council demands entry immediately—the girl’s presence has stirred the entire palace.”

Erevan’s expression sharpened.

Aria’s pulse spiked.

He stood slowly.

“Stay behind me,” he said softly.

And as the door began to crack open—

shadows surged at his command, rising like a storm preparing to kill.