Chapter 157: The Enemy Inside

It started with a scream.

Not Serena’s.

Lyra’s.

She was on second watch. Everyone else had been resting—recovering from the last few days of chaos, healing burns, whispering doubts. The fire had long since died down, and the ward circle Mira etched glowed dimly around their camp.

Serena jerked awake, hand already sparking gold, heart hammering in her chest.

Then—

Boom.

An explosion tore through the southern wall of the ruin, sending ash and rock flying. Ward lines shattered like glass. A column of shadow erupted in the center of the camp, pulsing with silver threads.

Gateborn.

Not acolytes this time—soldiers.

Clad in obsidian armor, eyes glowing like dying stars, they surged through the breach with inhuman speed.

“Get up!” Elias shouted, dragging Caine to cover. “It’s a hit—move, move!”

Kael blocked a spear with his blade, his left arm already bleeding. Mira fired a sigil that knocked two soldiers back, but five more replaced them instantly.

Serena barely had time to react.

The world spun.

The Gate inside her sang.

She dropped to one knee, pain slicing through her temples. Someone was calling to her from the other side of the veil—a voice she knew.

Darian.

His presence crashed into her mind like a wave.

“Serena. You should’ve come sooner. Now they’ll bleed for your delay.”

She screamed, forcing the connection back. Golden flame burst from her fingers and carved a wall between her friends and the advancing enemy. It bought them seconds. Maybe less.

Theron melted into the shadows and reappeared behind the enemy flank, striking down two soldiers with blades of ink and smoke.

“We can’t win this!” Kael shouted. “We’re exposed!”

“Where’s Lyra?” Mira gasped, eyes darting across the chaos.

No one answered.

Then—movement from the northern ridge.

A figure.

Slim. Fast. Hooded.

Running straight toward them.

Lyra.

Serena’s heart leapt—until she saw what glinted in the figure’s hand.

A curved blade.

And it wasn’t aimed at the enemy.

It was aimed at Elias.

“Elias!” Serena screamed.

He spun just in time, catching the strike with his vambrace. Sparks flew. The hood fell back.

It wasn’t Lyra.

It was someone who looked like her.

But wrong.

Too pale. Eyes too still.

“A mimic,” Mira breathed.

The creature grinned—and shifted, its face morphing through half a dozen of their companions before settling into a twisted version of Serena herself.

“I’ve always admired you,” it crooned.

Serena didn’t wait.

She slammed her power forward, a wave of golden fire that burned the mimic’s form to ash in seconds.

But the damage was done.

Confusion reigned. The Gateborn pushed harder. And still—no sign of Lyra.

Until they heard her voice.

“Kael!”

He turned.

She stood at the far edge of the ruins, blood on her hands.

And a Gateborn mark pulsing on her neck.

Kael froze.

“No,” Elias muttered. “She wouldn’t—”

“She did,” Mira said coldly. “That’s why the wards failed so quickly. That’s how they found us.”

Lyra met Serena’s eyes.

“I didn’t want to,” she said. “But he showed me what’s coming. What you’ll become. I thought I could stop it.”

“You betrayed us,” Serena said quietly.

“I saved you from yourself,” Lyra snapped. “You just don’t see it yet.”

Then—Darian appeared.

He didn’t walk through the ruins.

He stepped out of Caine.

Not physically. But his voice. His presence. His power.

Caine’s body stood—silver-eyed, stiff.

But when he spoke, it was Darian’s voice.

“You should’ve listened to her,” he said through Caine’s mouth. “Lyra saw what you refused to. That throne you fear? That fire inside you? It’s not a warning—it’s a prophecy. You were never meant to fight the Gate.”

Serena raised a trembling hand. “Get out of him.”

Caine’s face twisted into a grin. “You’ll have to tear me out. But if you do… you might kill what’s left of him.”

She hesitated.

That moment was all Darian needed.

A shockwave pulsed from Caine’s body, knocking everyone flat. The mimic dissolved. The soldiers retreated—back through a thin, flickering tear in the air.

A Gate. Small. Temporary.

They’d done what they came to do.

Not conquer.

Just break her resolve.

When Serena stood again, the ruins were on fire. Elias was bleeding. Kael held Mira, who was unconscious. Theron limped across the courtyard, dragging Caine’s collapsed form.

Lyra was gone.

Gone with the enemy.

Hours later, they regrouped beneath a ridge several miles west.

Mira had survived. Barely. Kael was burned, Elias was injured, and Theron looked like he’d lost a piece of himself.

But Serena?

She sat alone again—eyes hollow.

The betrayal had cut deeper than any wound.

“She believed it,” she said. “Everything he showed her. She saw that version of me on the throne—and thought it was truth.”

Elias knelt beside her. “So what do you do now?”

Serena stared at the stars.

Then at the fire in her palm.

Then at Caine’s still body.

“I go to the Gate,” she whispered. “Not to bow. Not to fight.”

“To learn.”

Elias’s voice was tight. “You’ll lose yourself.”

“I’ve already lost half of me,” she said softly. “It’s time to find out who’s still in here… before they decide for me.”