Semua Bab THE ALPHA'S LAST CHOICE : Bab 71 - Bab 77

The light faded slowly, leaving only the flicker of starlight overhead and the glow of the Spiral coiled within Selena’s chest. Lucien’s arms stayed tight around her, grounding her to this moment, but her mind had already slipped beyond the temple’s fractured floor. Her senses stretched, brushing against something buried far beneath the stone—something vast and slumberless. It wasn’t the Spiral. It wasn’t even a god.It was deeper.“I feel it,” Selena whispered, her fingers curling against Lucien’s tunic. Her voice was distant, like an echo pulled from a forgotten dream. “It’s not gone. The Spiral is calm, but something else… something older is moving.” She pulled away, standing unsteadily as her feet skimmed the cracked floor. The stillness of the temple had turned heavy, almost watchful, as if the walls were listening—and waiting.Lucien’s eyes swept the shadows, hand on the hilt of his blade. “Where is it coming from?” he asked. His voice tried for calm, but Selena heard the tensio

The moment the Spiral flared again, sharp and urgent, Selena knew the calm was a fragile illusion. The temple’s walls, once steady and ancient, now pulsed faintly with a restless energy that whispered of something deeper and darker lurking beneath. Lucien’s grip tightened around her waist, his eyes scanning every shadow, every crack as if expecting the world itself to tear open. Selena’s breath caught—she could feel it, a presence moving through the earth, older than the gods, waiting patiently for her. This was no longer just a test of power, but a reckoning with forces she barely understood.Her merged Spiral throbbed against her ribs like a second heartbeat, pulsing with both strength and vulnerability. The twin’s essence that had once been her enemy now nestled quietly within, a fragile harmony forged from pain and survival. But harmony was a fragile thing, especially when the dark beneath the temple stirred like a beast waking from slumber. Selena’s eyes narrowed as the weight of

The world beyond the gate was neither sky nor earth—only a boundless expanse of shifting echoes and flickering memories, suspended like glass shards in a storm. Selena stepped through first, the Spiral flaring violently in her chest as her body fought to orient itself in a realm without gravity, light, or time. Her feet touched nothing and everything at once, and the only constant was the pressure of presence—an overwhelming awareness pressing against her soul. Lucien’s hand reached for hers, but a violent current of fragmented light tore through them, ripping his image into smoke. Selena screamed his name, but the sound dissolved into silence, eaten by the void.Shapes moved in the haze, not of beasts or men, but of selves—reflections of her from paths never walked. One stood cloaked in fire, her eyes black with grief; another wore a crown of bone, her expression void of empathy. Each version bore the Spiral, corrupted or refined, showing her what could have been had her choices twis

Selena stared at the sigil, its words still seared behind her eyes. The lock must break. Not a plea. Not a warning. A command, spoken with the weight of something older than language. She could feel it now—the lock the Spiral had buried so deep even she had never glimpsed it before. It pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat, coiled in the space between her soul and the Spiral’s core.Lucien approached, careful not to touch her. “Selena, talk to me. What does it mean—the lock?” His voice was steady, but she heard the hesitation, the quiet fear of knowing too much. She closed her eyes, searching within. There, beneath layers of flame and memory, was a sealed threshold. A boundary carved in truth and forged in sacrifice. “It’s something the Spiral was never supposed to open,” she whispered. “Something it bound with its last breath before the cycle began.”The others were summoned before the hour ended. Elias stood rigid at the edge of the altar while Maera, her face pale, examin