Chapter 159: Lyra’s Price

The Gate realm was not made for sleep.

It didn’t have night or day, just endless layers of motionless stars, frozen time, and shifting echoes of what once was—and what could be.

Here, Lyra wandered alone.

Darian had dismissed the soldiers after the last failed ambush. Even the mimics had returned to their hollows. Only she remained in this in-between.

Alone with the voice she couldn’t silence.

Hers.

You lied to them.

You chose power over loyalty.

You betrayed the only family you had left.

She dug her fingers into her arms, trying to squeeze the guilt out of herself. It didn’t work.

“Regret looks heavy on you,” came Darian’s voice.

He materialized behind her—calm, patient, as always. Not angry. Never angry.

Which made it worse.

“I did what I had to do,” she said without turning.

“You did what I asked you to do.”

Lyra spun then. “Don’t twist this. You showed me what Serena becomes. The throne. The ruin. The blood. I couldn’t let it happen.”

“And I never said you were wrong,” he replied. “Serena is a firestorm pretending to be a candle. She will burn through everything she loves just to keep from extinguishing. You did the logical thing. You chose survival.”

Her voice cracked. “Then why do I feel like I killed her?”

Darian tilted his head, almost thoughtfully. “Because part of you still sees her as your friend.”

“She was my friend,” Lyra hissed. “We trained together. Bled together. Survived things that should’ve broken us.”

“Yet she left you behind.”

The words hit deeper than she expected.

“Serena didn’t abandon me,” she snapped. “She was chosen. I wasn’t.”

“Exactly,” Darian whispered. “She was chosen. And you were left to pick up the pieces.”

He stepped closer, voice softer now.

“I know what it feels like to live in someone else’s shadow. Always second. Always not enough. That’s why I chose you.”

“I didn’t ask to be chosen.”

“No,” he said, “but you accepted.”

The memory came back then.

The night before the Fortress ambush.

The moment Serena fell asleep after whispering, “We make it through this, Lyra… we rebuild together.”

And the moment Lyra had walked out of the camp to meet Darian at the edge of the woods.

She remembered the cold air against her face.

The feeling of the mark burning on her neck—fresh and raw.

And the deal.

“You keep her alive,” Darian had said, “and I’ll keep you seen.”

It wasn’t about power.

It was about not being invisible.

He’d offered her something Serena never had: a place to belong without needing to prove herself.

Back in the present, Lyra sat alone on the edge of the Gate’s mirrored lake, where images shimmered beneath the surface like moving memories.

She stared into the water.

It didn’t show Serena.

It showed herself.

Blood on her hands.

Alone.

Crying in a cell she’d been thrown into as a child after her parents were executed for false treason. She had been ten.

It had been Serena who broke her out years later.

Now, that same Serena was the one she betrayed.

She slammed a stone into the water. The image shattered.

Behind her, footsteps echoed again.

But it wasn’t Darian.

It was a woman—shimmering, faceless, clothed in layered veils made of starlight.

Not human. Not real.

But old.

“You think you’ve made your choice,” the woman said. “But you’ve only postponed the cost.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the whisper Serena hears when she dreams. The part of her that remembers.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “You’re with the Gate.”

“No,” the woman said. “I am the Gate.”

Lyra took a step back.

“Then why are you here?”

The entity smiled. “To show you that Serena is not the only one bound to me.”

“What?”

The lake rippled.

And then it showed a different image.

Lyra.

At ten again.

But not in a prison.

In a forest.

Standing before a silver flame.

Touching it.

Marked long before she ever met Serena.

“No…” she whispered.

“You were chosen too,” the entity said. “Not for the throne. But for the blade that defends it.”

A sword rose from the lake, forged from silver, wrapped in runes.

“You were never meant to kneel. You were meant to guard.”

Lyra shook her head violently. “You’re lying.”

“You just forgot.”

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

The image of young Serena—arms outstretched, covered in blood—flickered again.

“I wanted to protect her,” Lyra said.

“Then do it,” the Gate whispered.

“She’ll never trust me now.”

“Then earn it.”

Back in the waking world, Serena stirred from uneasy sleep.

Her palm glowed faintly.

Not golden.

Not blue.

But silver.

A connection forged across realms.

A memory surfacing.

A whisper.

Lyra…

And far away, in the hollow world of the Gate, Lyra stood beneath the stars—her hand on the sword, eyes burning.

Whatever Darian had planned… she would decide who she became.

Even if she had to turn against him.