THE BONDS THAT BIND

The three of them moved down the corridor of silence. Serena’s brain was in a swirl of emotions and her body bruised and battered but somehow in the moonlight with her head in the sand there was a strange peace amongst the madness. The fig was over, but a nagging voice in the back of her mind scratched at her, an indescribable terror that wouldn’t allow her to be alone. The gloom was never far away, and it was only a matter of time before something else, something worse, knocked.

The torches on the walls flickered as they brushed by, casting long shadows on the ground, reaching toward them, beckoning with hands they didn’t have. The unknown pressed down on her chest, heavy enough to choke her, but this once in a millennia, it didn’t break her. It only made her stronger.

“We’ve got this,” Lucian’s voice roused her from her reveries, laced with his characteristic certainty. He smiled at her, not the sunny warm smile, but the sunny warm smile that was colored with how all of us felt.

That made Serena’s lips quirk, her arboreal sense of humor punctured. She glanced down the hallway; debris from the battle, debris from them, still littered around them, proving the effort that had been required to put the viscous, darting thing that had taken them to waste. There was fear and exhaustion, yes, but also something else was being born in her. A power. A force. The Onyx wolf reigned now, and she wouldn’t let it's power slip from her fingers.

Elias, who had quietly followed them, was quieter than usual. His eyes flicked around, even as his expression stayed inscrutable. He knew he was always there, always watching, always thinking. She trusted him, but tonight, something else was in the air — an unresolved tension between them that hadn’t been there before.

As they made it out the door, Serena froze. Some indefinable thing in the atmosphere had shifted, and it left her taut. Stepping outside into the cold night, air so hot her skin, for a second, felt scorched by the breeze across her face. This was not the comforting ritual of the night. This is where it differed, the eye ahead of yet another storm.

“Serena,” a voice called from the darkness, familiar and yet disconcerting.

Serena’s eyes snapped up. “Mother?”

And there, at the edge of the courtyard, was Isolde. Her mother. And the woman who had left her all those years ago, but had never really been out of her mind. She wore great robes of pitch that plunged directly into the night, all potency and cold.

Isolde’s gaze bore into Serena’s, sharper than any blade. It was as if she could pierce right down through her daughter’s deep interior, sizing up, measuring, calculating.

“You are not the same,” Isolde said. Her voice was as smooth and cold as it had always been. “The Onyx wolf… I knew you would wake its power.”

Serena’s heart tightened. “What do you want, Mother?”

Isolde smiled, but it was not a very nice smile. It felt purposeful, even playful. “I want what has always mine,” she said, inching closer, keeping her eyes glued to Serena. “I’ve been waiting for you to take a good look at it, Serena. What you’re beginning to realize is just a glimpse of the Onyx wolf’s power. I knew all along, you could be so much.

Lucian advanced, all coils and knots, but Serena stopped him with a hand. To be sure, she understood the weight of her mother’s words, the promise of whatever she was offering, but also the gulf between them. There was no trust there. No love. Just manipulation.

“You didn’t care about me,” Serena said, low but firm. “You only care about power. Your … this is not yours to control.”

Isolde smiled more broadly, though there was no heat behind it. “You still don’t get it, Dear, You think this is about control? No, this is about legacy. The Onyx wolf's gift can only be bestowed upon the deserving. And I’m so much looking forward to help you to observe this.”

The air was so thick with tension that Serena squinted her eyes, opening her mouth to respond, but then another voice pierced the atmosphere.

“It is true, you know, Serena,” Mira said with a venemous voice. Mira crept out from the shadows with a playful smile. She wasn't a stranger here — one of the people Serena had always trusted in the pack, and with good reason. Mira was now no longer a ghost — she was a deadlier ghost.

“What are you doing here?” she had looked at Lucian and Elias, who had both gone stiff, when she had said it — Serena’s voice had been so sharp there had been no mistaking it.

Mira gave a mock curtsy. “Oh, please don’t look at me like that, Serena. I’m only here to provide something of — perspective. Y’all ain’t the only one eyeing that Onyx wolf, you know." A little chuckle escaped her mouth. 

“Some of us have been doing this under the radar, waiting until we got an opportunity.”

Elias narrowed his eyes darkly and his hands made fists. Serena could feel him bleeding with fury, but she said nothing. That was not something she was yet ready to reconcile.

“So you have been working with her?” The voice had seemingly crystallized like icicle, and Serena had clutched her fists on her hips. There were betrayals thicker than the blood on a sword.

Mira smiled, but there was no joy in her smile. “Oh, don’t be so surprised. You thought you had the upper hand, Serena, but the entire time, you were simply the puppet.” The real power? It has always worked in the shadows, from behind the throne. You just never been smart enough to know that.” ”

Fire rage from the one above her lit up Serene’s eyes as she stepped closer. “You’ve betrayed me. You’ve been working me the whole time.”

Mira’s smile didn’t falter. “It’s not betrayal, dear. It’s survival. The world’s changing. It is the Onyx wolf — the power that has the potential to change everything. You are indeed too blind to see that.”

Lucian stood before Mira and Serena, his face hard. “Enough,” he pronounced, and with authority. “We don’t entertain the company of traitors."

Isolde caught Mira’s eye, and her look narrowed a little. Serena didn’t even need to read as far down as the third line to know that no love was lost between the two, but they were both deadly in their own regard. This, after all, was not a bond destined to endure; this alliance, once warped and fragile. But for now, both were united in the pursuit of something that Serena would never possibly let either of them get control of.

“I’m going to say this one more time, Serena,” Isolde said, and the tone was the whisper of a chill. “You are not the only one to go through this process. You are More powerful, And I can liberate you from it! We can build a new world. ”

Serena maintained a tall, strong posture. “I don’t need you. I don’t want to be that person’s servant, his tool. I lead my pack. I lead my people. And I’m going to defend them against whoever tries to take that from me.”

Mira’s lips curled at the ends, but Isolde just smiled, and there was a flicker of mutual comprehension.

“This isn’t over,” Isolde said quietly, walking away. “The Onyx wolf will be mine one way or another.”

Just like that, she and Mira disappeared into the darkness, leaving Serena, Lucian, and Elias in the cold of the night, the weight of betrayal and uncertainty for the future heavy as stone.

“We need to be ready,” Elias said softly, looking where they had disappeared.

Serena nodded; fire flared in her eyes. “We will be. “And we will meet whatever comes next, together.”

And so night continued, dark with the questions and answers of tomorrow, and brimming with possibility, and Serena was not afraid anymore. The Onyx wolf had chosen her and no one — not even her mother — could change that.