Oblivion Blackwood Novels & Stories

I answered immediately There was another pause. “If this is a test,” he warned, “you should end the call.” “It’s not a test,” I said evenly. “Verification code: Omega-9-Alpha-Midnight-7.” The silence that followed was longer this time. When he spoke again, his tone had changed completely. “…Princess?” “Yes.” A breath left him audibly. “We were told the Blackwood flame died.” “It didn’t,” I said. “It was buried.”

The voice from the darkness was a hook in my soul, reeling us forward into the chill. We stepped through the false wall, our single flashlight beam cutting a pathetic swath through the profound black. It fell upon bones. Not neatly stacked, but piled, heaped, a jumbled sea of femurs, skulls, and rib cages that filled a cavernous space from the slimy floor to the shadowed vault of the ceiling decades above. The Ossuary. The collective remains of centuries of Blackwood pack, their final energy a silent, heavy blanket that smothered the air and muted the magic in my blood to a faint, dying whisper.

Ten years is a heartbeat to a planet, but a lifetime to a survivor. The wasteland was no longer a graveyard of gray ash. It had become a mosaic of impossible colors. The Blackwood seeds, touched by the residual resonance of the "Shadow-Sun," hadn't just grown; they had evolved. The trees were massive, silver-barked giants with leaves that shimmered like oil on water, breathing out an oxygen so pure it made the lungs of the "Awakened" ache with sweetness.

When she looked up she saw Thorne limping towards her, his wound leaking blood. Just as Thorne was about to attack her a loud explosion sounded. The black doors of the terrace were blown off their hinges and a cloud of smoke filled the air. Through the smoke a figure emerged. It was Damon Blackwood wearing leather and covered in soot. He was not alone. A group of Blackwood sentinels were with him armed with crossbows and spears. Damon looked at Thorne, his eyes burning with anger. "I told you Elara " he said. "Our contract is not yet done."

They could create a barrier the Soul Eaters couldn't cross. The drive took them out of the urban sprawl and into the dense, oppressive canopy of the Blackwood. The trees here were ancient, their branches tangled like the fingers of drowning men. The mist was thinner here, but it felt more concentrated, swirling in the hollows of the roots. As they approached the coordinates Marcus provided, the forest began to change. The shadows seemed to pull back, and the air grew warmer, smelling of lavender and ozone.

"Please tell me we are not traveling there tonight." "No," Darius said. "Excellent. We're going home." Luna looked at him. Darius continued, "Blackwood is full of people who have spent the last several days being attacked, separated from their wolves, stripped of inherited traits, threatened by my secret brother, and nearly erased from memory. I think they deserve at least one night without us discovering another ancient catastrophe." Onyx nodded. "Possibly two." "Let's not become unrealistic." Luna smiled. Then she looked toward the book. "What do we do with this?"

The carcass of the Abyssal Leviathan disappeared into the pitch-black freezing waters above, taking the madness of the trench with it. At the bottom of the world, bathed in the soft, ancient luminescence of the flawless white jade gates, Caleb Blackwood stood motionless. The timer in his HUD was a relentless executioner: 69:40:12.

“That’s him.” Nathan Blackwood. I recognized that face instantly. CEO of Blackwood Industries, headquartered in New York. The man was always in the news. His face was plastered all over the business magazines I loved to read. He was tall, like his cousin, Julian—handsome, with the kind of presence that commanded attention, even in a photograph. And his fiancée—Kimberly—she looked exactly like me. I swiped back to her picture with trembling fingers, my stomach twisting in confusion and disbelief.

Retribution was coming. The full extraction wrapped in under ten minutes of pure, controlled chaos. Non-lethal force had minimized unnecessary deaths, but several Blackwood guards lay tranqed or critically wounded on the floors above. The financial war continued raging outside the gates Blackwood stocks still in freefall, the media frenzy exploding as first reports of an “armed incident at the Blackwood estate” hit every wire service in the country.

They needed something to hold onto; their Alpha wasn't here, but they believed that the Beta was capable of keeping them safe. I gave Jonathan a knowing nod, and we continued our journey; we knew this war was far from over. Despite the appearance of light, it still felt like we were walking in complete darkness. Into the unknown. We didn't know what awaited us or who was attacking Blackwood. But we knew that whoever this was, he had a link to the witch who had been tormenting Lila. The night was far from over, this was just the beginning, and this was going to be a very long night.