CHAPTER 161: THE FALLING VEILRHEA'S POV: SONG OF THE CHAPTER: "Wings" by Birdy~~~ It starts with a hum that sounds low and ancient, vibrating in my bones like something older than time is whispering directly into me. I’m in the middle of the meadow outside Kaia’s family house, my palms to the earth, trying to ground myself. But the ground is shaking or maybe I am. Energy pulses through my veins like lightning not the pretty kind that streaks the sky in silver-blue veins, but the kind that burns forests down. My breath is shallow, clipped, and my magic is no longer answering me. It’s screaming. “Rhea!” someone calls behind me, it is probably Ezra, judging by the worried lilt to the voice, but it sounds distant. Distant, like everything else that isn’t this storm building inside me. I don’t mean to lift from the ground, but I do. I hover, untethered, as the air thickens around me, crackling with power. My hands blaze with light, fingers curling against the pain the pow
CHAPTER 160 : OF WOLVES AND FLAMEKAIA'S POV: SONG FOR THE CHAPTER: “Control” by Halsey~~Before the strike: The war table is quiet... too quiet for a room filled with people whose blood runs wild with magic and vengeance. The air buzzes with restrained tension. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, in my fists, behind my eyes. “We can’t wait for them to strike first,” Ezra says, voice sharp as a blade. “They’ll expect that. It’s how they’ve always fought. Cunning and calculated.” “They’ve taken too much,” Rhea murmurs, fingers clenched around the silver feather pendant hanging from her neck. “Too many lives and in so little time.” Lucien nods, arms crossed over his chest, his aura sparking faintly. “We hit them now. On our terms. Catch them off guard.” Rowan leans over the map, tapping a small cluster of stones that represent the Nightowl outposts. “Here. The Northern ridge. Weakest point. We strike hard. We don’t stay long.” My voice finally breaks through the fo
CHAPTER 159 : WHEN THE SKY BLED LIGHTNINGLUCIEN'S POV: SONG FOR THE CHAPTER: "Start a War" by Klergy ft. Valerie Broussard~~~My hands shake. Something has been beneath my skin like a scream trying to crawl out. For days now, this has been happening: a tingling buzz in my spine, a heaviness in my limbs, a pull in my bones toward something I can't name. When I breathe, the air flickers with energy, little arcs of light zipping between my fingertips.Something's changing in me.I can feel it and I absolutely hate it. I drag my nails across my forearm to remind myself I’m real. The friction anchors me... for a moment. But even pain feels distant now. The magic is stretching inside me, ballooning with a pressure that wants to burst. Ezra says it started after the battle at the pack house. After Boundless tried to siphon my soul. Maybe he's right. Maybe whatever he left in me is waking up. I pace the edge of the hill, the one that overlooks the entire northern valley. W
SONG FOR THIS CHAPTER: "Dynasty" by MIIA CHAPTER 158: SECRETS IN THE ASHES POV: LYSS ~~~ I sit cross-legged in the ruins of the Guen pack library, my fingers brushing over soot-stained pages that crinkle under the weight of time. Ash clings to my skin like a second layer, but I barely notice. The fire that tore through this place weeks ago was meant to erase everything; the names, truths, bloodlines. But something survived. Something waited for me and now it’s in my lap. A letter. Sealed with the moon symbol I used to wear around my neck before I learned how heavy it could feel. Before I began to wonder if the moonlight was meant to guide or blind me. The parchment trembles in my hands, the wax seal cracked but still holding strong at the edges, as if resisting revelation. I hesitate, breath shallow. Something in my chest warns me that once I open this, I won’t come back the same. I open it anyway. > To the one who follows the silver trail when all others have turned t
Chapter 157: THE BINDING VEILRHEA'S POV: SONG OF THE CHAPTER: MOON RIVER BY FRANK OCEAN.~~The forest looks way different now. It used to hum. I remember the first time I came here, to the heart of this ancient glade tangled in ash trees and forgotten moonlight. It was wild, ferocious and magic pulsed in the mossy floor, whispering in an old tongue I was too young to translate but I could feel it. In my bones. That heavy thrum of fate. That was where it happened. Where the Veil found us and it wrapped itself around my soul and tied it to Lucien's. Not gently and sweetly. Instead it was like claws sinking into marrow, like breath stolen mid-sentence. That bond was never gentle. It never asked. It simply was. And now... the forest is quiet, too quiet. The magic here no longer whispers. It waits. The roots creak under my boots as I step into the clearing. My body knows the way, even if my mind begged me not to come. I touch the scar on my wrist, the place where the Veil le
CHAPTER 156: PROPHECY BROKENKAIA'S POV: SONG OF THE CHAPTER: MY TEARS ARE BECOMING A SEA BY M83~~~ The vision comes like a knife through water in a sharp, rippling, and wrong manner. I’m standing in the clearing behind the Guen Pack house, where the trees lean like old friends but something’s off. The air smells of ash, and the wind is whispering in a tongue I don’t understand. I reach for the usual thread of fate, the glowing line that tells me where to go, what to feel, how to breathe through the storm. But it’s gone. Not severed. Just... disappeared.I blink, and another vision hits. Rhea is crumpled beneath a tree, her chest unmoving. Her fire is extinguished. The air around her is scorched black, but no flame dares flicker. Her hand... the one she once pressed to my heart when I was breaking, is curled into a fist, holding nothing but dust. My scream shatters the vision, dragging me back. But I don’t get to breathe before another one slams into me. Lyss stands