The darkness enveloped me in gauze, dense and cloying. I was in an emptiness, weightless, where time folded in on itself. Whispers filled the void — familiar, some strange echoes of a past I didn’t recall. My limbs felt heavy, movable only in the realm of dreams, as if I were detached from the world.Then, pain.A sudden, searing pain shot through my body, pulling me back up to the surface. My lungs burned as I struggled to breathe; my perception returned in a rush. What I first felt was warmth — arms wrapped around me, strong and steady. A scent I knew. Safe. Familiar.Maxwell.“Lena.” His voice was gravelly, age raw with desperation. “Come back to me.”I attempted to get up, but my body was slow and weighted with fatigue and something more. Something wrong. My stomach roiled, and I pressed my hands on it as that deep, foreign emptiness began taking root in my gut.And then I remembered.The baby. The power. David’s spell sliced through me like a blade.No, I whispered, my voice so l
I was lost in the dark — engulfed and gasping.I was falling — plunging into an endless abyss, my screams torn away by the vacuum. The shadows danced around me whispering in voices I nearly recognized words falling through my fingers like sand. I didn’t know how long I was falling — seconds, minutes, years? Time didn’t exist here. Only weightless descent.And, just as suddenly as it started, it ended.I wasn’t falling anymore. My feet were on solid ground, but everything around me was…off. The heavens roared above, a mass of twisting black clouds going too quickly, too wrong. The land was sparse and cracked in all directions; the air was thick with the smell of ash. There was no sun. No moon. Just the crushing pressure of nothingness crushing down on me.I swallowed hard, my throat like dust in the desert. “Where am I?”A smooth-as-silk voice replied from behind me. “Somewhere between what was and what will be.”I whipped around, my body poised for a fight.And froze.David loomed bef
The world wasn’t standing still, but I was.Maxwell had not released me, his grip firm, steady, as if he were afraid I might vanish again. The sanctuary walls, though still pounding with the echoes of the power I had unleashed, cocoons of bone and muscle and bone, loomed in my periphery, my mind somewhere else, stuck between darkness and light, between what I had seen and what had yet to pass.I had chosen power.Now, I had to live with it.Maxwell’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Lena… you’re scaring me.”I met his gaze, and for the first time in ages, I wasn’t afraid of what he might see. “Good.”His brows knitted together; concern and another, too-complex-to-read emotion danced across his face. “You’re different.”I took a deep breath, pressing my palm to my chest. I was steady of heartbeat, but everything else inside me turned and roiled. “I feel different.”“Different how?”I hesitated. How could I describe the feeling of standing at the brink of an abyss, looking down into it,
Their breath was warm, feeding the air with blood and magic. Behind us was the sanctuary, an ancient monument to the power I was only beginning to comprehend. But the evening was charged with danger — David’s pack was close. I could sense them, their presence nagging at the back of my mind, their hunger curling in the air.Maxwell stood next to me, his body stiff, his breathing calm. He was ready for battle. We both were.My father stepped out from the shadows, his face stone. “They’ll be here soon.”I nodded, flexing my fingers. Power throbbed inside my skin, but it was no longer magic—it was something deeper, something primal. I had been spending my life repressing what I was. That was over.Maxwell exhaled slowly. “Lena, before this starts—”I looked back at him, hearing the hesitance in his voice. “What?”His jaw tensed. “You don’t need to do this by yourself.”I shook my head. “I do. You know I do.”“You think this is only about power?” His voice was sharp, but there was more—a t
The battle was over.David was gone. That sanctuary became a battlefield, just as it should have been a sanctuary, and instead, it lay silent beneath the weight of all we had lost. The war — the one that had shaped my life, the one that had molded me — was over.And yet, I felt no peace.I was on the balcony of my childhood house, looking out at the city that used to be my world. The skyline loomed ahead of me, twinkling lights blinking in the distance, cars moving like veins pumping life into the streets. To them, nothing had changed. They had no knowledge of the war waged in the shadows, the lives lost, the blood spilled.”They didn’t know me.The wind was pulling my hair, and it was cold against my skin, but I hardly felt it. My hands lay on my stomach — a habit, now, an unconscious need to shield the life inside me. My child. The sole piece of this ground that really mattered now.The door behind me creaked open, and I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Maxwell. His presenc
The silence hung between us, thick and stifling. Elias waited patiently as if he already knew how I would respond. As if he thought I should fall in line, that I would embrace the mantle of power the Council had so graciously put at my feet.But I wasn’t the girl they imagined. Not anymore.I crossed my arms and kept my face neutral. “You want me to lead? Lead what, exactly?”Elias smiled, but there was a calculating look in his eyes. “A new order, Miss Weber. The world is changing. Supernatural forces are growing bolder, more reckless. With the Blackwoods now gone, there is a vacuum. The Council believes that you hold the balance.”Maxwell scoffed beside me. “Balance? You mean control.”Elias fixed his piercing stare on him. “Control is balance. Would you prefer chaos?”My fingers dug into my arms. “Why me? You have your own enforcers. You have your rules and your traditions. Why come to me now?”Elias’s smile finally disappeared, and when he spoke again, his voice was smooth yet fir
The heaviness of my decision crushed my chest even after the words were out of my mouth. Maxwell’s hand was still in my hand, warm, steady, grounding. But his grip was my tension, his words unspoken.He exhaled slowly. “So, what now?”I turned to face him completely, looking in his eyes for the slightest hint of hesitation, of doubt. But there was none. Only quiet resolve.“Now,” I said, my voice steady even as inside I was swirling with chaos, “we go to them.”Maxwell’s jaw tightened. “Lena—”“I know what you’re going to say,” I interrupted, squeezing his fingers. “But you need to trust me.”His expression darkened. “That’s not the problem. The problem is them. The Council does not give power without receiving something in return.”I swallowed hard. “I’m aware.”“I was like, ‘Then what are we doing here?’ He retracted his hand and desperately ran his fingers through his hair. “You know how they operate. They do not see you as a human being but as a weapon. “They don’t want to follow
I heard my heart pounding inside my ears as I sat in the sterile, icy room, the walls closing in around me. Every breath I took felt heavier than the last, and my chest constricted under the weight of what I’d just consented to. The Council had witnessed my determination, and now was the time for no turning back.Maxwell had been unusually quiet since leaving their headquarters, lost in thoughts far away, no doubt fighting his internal battle between wanting to support me and the gut-curling fear of what we were about to encounter.I watched him from the corner of my eye while we sat in my family’s estate, the quiet between us heavy. The soft crackle of the fireplace was the only noise in the room, yet it did nothing to soothe the tempest within me.“You’re not saying anything,” I said, my voice breaking the tension.Maxwell didn’t look at me. Instead, he gazed into the flames, his face carved in sharp, unyielding shadows.“I don’t gotta say anything, Lena. He sounded flat, lacking em
Words in a language none of us had ever spoken but all understood.“Come home, Gatekeeper.”I stepped into the dark. And it welcomed me.Not with warmth but with recognition. The shadows curled around my boots, not pulling me down, but carrying me forward, a quiet reverence in their movement. It wasn’t a fall. It was a descent controlled, precise. As if this place had been expecting me all along.The world above vanished in an instant.No light, no sound. Just pressure. Like the air here had weight. Like memories were embedded in it. I felt them—fragments of thought, of pain, of sacrifice—all whispering around me like a thousand voices buried beneath layers of time. None loud enough to understand, but all too present to ignore.And then, just ahead, I saw it.A gate—not made of stone or metal, but pure energy. It pulsed like a living thing, veins of crimson and gold coursing across its surface. It wasn’t shut. It wasn’t open. It waited.“Gatekeeper,” a voice echoed, not around me, but
Silence had weight. It wasn't just the absence of sound—it was the pressure of dread before something snapped. That silence hung heavy in the sanctuary, where the second seal now glowed faint red, pulsing like a heart buried too deep in the stone.I stood before it, my hands trembling not from fear alone, but from the ripple of ancient magic churning through the floor, creeping into my bones.“She tricked us,” Nima whispered, her voice raw with disbelief. “She tricked all of us. Even you, Lena.”“I know,” I said.Maxwell leaned against a cracked pillar, one arm pressed to his ribs where Elara had thrown him. “This isn't the end,” he said. “It’s the real beginning, isn't it?”“I think it always was,” I murmured.Barin slammed his fist into the stone. “We should’ve killed her when we had the chance. We had the chance.”“No,” I said flatly. “We had an illusion. Elara wasn’t trying to win. She was buying time. She’s not the villain. Not entirely.”Maxwell’s gaze sharpened. “What are you s
The aftermath should have felt like a victory. But it didn’t.The sanctuary lay broken, cracked from the battle, the magical veins of the earth still pulsing weakly underfoot. Smoke drifted lazily in the air, the tang of blood and burnt magic too thick to ignore. Survivors moved like ghosts, patching wounds, retrieving bodies.I sat on the cold stone steps of the ruined central hall, numb, staring at my shaking hands. Maxwell hovered close, never letting me drift too far, but giving me space I didn’t know how to fill.“What now?” Nima asked softly, kneeling beside me. Her face was grimy, streaked with dried blood, her eyes bruised from exhaustion.“Now?” I said the word hollow on my tongue. “Now we bury the dead. And we wait.”“For what?” Barin asked, joining us, cradling a broken arm against his chest.“For the next monster,” I said, without a shred of humor.Maxwell shifted, his body taut with tension. “They’ll come,” he said. “Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next month. But the
The ground buckled under the weight of the creature stepping from the breach, its horns scraping the edges of the broken sky, its very presence warping the sanctuary’s magic like a disease. Every breath it exhaled filled the air with a thick, choking fog that tasted of ash and endings.Maxwell tightened his grip on me, shifting his stance defensively. “Lena, we can’t fight that.”I struggled to sit upright, every nerve screaming in protest, the knife wound burning like an open brand against my side. My magic was dim, a flickering candle in a hurricane. I knew, deep down, he was right. We couldn’t fight it. Not like this.Not head-on.The creature spoke again, its voice layered with a thousand echoes. "You were meant to shepherd my arrival, Gatekeeper. Instead, you squandered the blood. You squandered the keys."Maxwell turned to me, his face pale but determined. “What is it talking about?”I coughed, each word tearing out of me. “The Crown... the Vault... they were... distractions. Th
The roar of the Firstborn creatures tore across the sanctuary like a living wave. They moved with terrifying grace, shadows with jagged edges, mouths full of teeth too many for any natural being. Their bodies twisted in ways that defied logic, like they had never been meant to walk in a world bound by rules.I barely had time to raise a shield before the first impact hit. Magic flared around us, an unsteady wall of golden light. Maxwell was already at my side, slashing at the nearest creature, his blade singing as it cut into the darkness. But they weren’t easy to kill—every wound sealed almost immediately, the monsters adapting, growing stronger with each blow.“We can’t hold them!” Barin shouted from somewhere to my left, his arms coated in blood—some his, some not.Nima and Elara worked furiously at the boundary, their chants weaving more layers of protection, but the creatures shredded through them like paper. I knew it then. This wasn’t a battle we could win by brute strength.We
The magic snapped like a whip through the circle.For a moment, it felt like the sanctuary itself recoiled from what we were trying to do, as if even the earth knew the risk we were taking. But we held the line—Maxwell, Barin, Nima, Elara, and the others—all of us linked not just by magic, but by sheer, desperate will.The vault below the sanctuary pulsed like a second heartbeat, slower and heavier than the First Door, but no less ominous. As we chanted, the bindings on it began to fray, golden threads unraveling into the night air.And then, A crack.Not from the ground this time. From the sky.Lightning forked across the heavens, but it wasn't the natural blue-white of a summer storm. It was black, threaded with red, like the sky itself was bleeding. A smell like burning iron filled the air.Something else had arrived. Something not from our world.Barin staggered, clutching his head. “They’re coming!” he gasped.“Focus!” I shouted, forcing my magic into the next seal layer.Nima’s
For the first time in my life, I felt powerless.The heartbeat beneath the earth had grown faster, stronger, until the ground vibrated constantly, as though the land itself were straining against invisible chains. Around us, the sanctuary’s wards pulsed weakly, flickering like candle flames caught in a hurricane. Every instinct in my body screamed that the Harbinger’s arrival wasn’t the end of the nightmare—it was the beginning.Maxwell stood beside me, staring into the darkness beyond the tents. His face was a perfect mask, but I knew him too well. I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the fear he would never voice unless forced.“We’re not ready for this,” Barin muttered, pacing back and forth. “We built defenses against armies, assassins, the Council’s damn enforcers—but this?” He shook his head violently. “We can’t fight myths, Lena.”“We’re not fighting myths,” I said, my voice hoarse but certain. “We’re fighting the consequences of lies too old to be forgotten.”I
For a long time, no one moved.Lior’s body lay unnaturally still, the black veins receding slowly as if whatever force had animated him had finally burned itself out. The silence pressed into my ears like a physical weight, and all I could hear was the wild hammering of my own heart.Maxwell knelt cautiously, checking Lior’s pulse even though we all knew there would be none. “He’s gone,” he said grimly, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers like he could scrub away what he had just witnessed.I stepped closer to Lior’s body, forcing my legs to obey even as every part of me screamed to turn away. My fingers itched to summon my magic, to scan deeper, but something in my gut warned me against it. Whatever had been buried in Lior, whatever had just been unleashed, it had been old. Purposeful. A ticking time bomb planted within him long before he ever set foot inside our sanctuary.Barin's voice broke the suffocating quiet. “First Door?” he said, his tone raw, full of confusion and
The Seal wasn’t just breaking.It was opening.I could feel it deep inside my chest, pulsing to a rhythm I hadn’t known was mine until now—a calling that wasn’t spoken in words, but written into my bones.Maxwell gripped my arm. “Lena. Talk to me. What’s happening?”I struggled to find my voice. “The Seal... It’s not just a lock. It’s a beacon. It’s been waiting for me. Not to keep it closed—” my throat tightened, “—but to complete it.”Barin burst into the tent, panting hard. “The eastern sentries just reported—cracks. In the ley lines. They’re... bleeding magic. Wild magic.”Bleeding.The word hit harder than it should have. As if something sacred was hemorrhaging, and I could feel every drop slipping away.Maxwell swore under his breath, pacing. “We don’t have time. You have to decide. Now.”But how could I decide?If I answered the call, if I embraced the destiny written into my blood, I risked becoming something else—something not entirely human. Not entirely mine. But if I refus