Shining Room 217 Novels & Stories

she asked looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Nothing, I’m just admiring my beautiful Queen.” He said and winked at her. “Yeah, good cover.” She snarked. While Spencer and Alyea escorted Tiamat to the nursery, the others continued with the business at hand. “We need to make sure that no one else knows about us Shadows,” Mimi started, “I mean that no one can know...” “Mimi,” Kydence interrupted, “they know the rules, Mimi.” She assured. “Sorry.” She bowed.

"Sofia is just my assistant. That's all." "Matthew, it's not about who she is," I replied, keeping my voice even. "It's about boundaries. About trust." I faced him. "Your secret room is our space, just like this home. When you let others in, it's like you're saying I'm not special anymore." Matthew gazed into my eyes, his fingers lightly touching my cheek. "You'll always be special, Elena. I promise, nothing like this will happen again," he said seriously. With that, he kissed my forehead. "That secret room will always be just ours."

She trailed Varian through the darkening hall, past the elevator banks, toward a heavy steel door she hadn’t noticed before. He punched in a code, turned the wheel, and forced it open. Inside: a narrow chamber of breakers, servers, and humming consoles. The heart of his sanctuary. Every screen flickered with static. Across one, words scrolled in jagged white letters: WE ARE THE ARBITERS. YOUR WALLS BLEED.

he shouted. The lights exploded overhead, a burst of white, then darkness. When the lights returned, the child was gone. And in her place, a full-grown reflection of Evelyn stared back. There wasn't a glitch this time, not a distortion. A perfect mirror of her, except the eyes. The eyes were wrong, black, shining, and alive. Afterlight smiled and said “I’ve been waiting for you.” The containment room door slammed shut behind them at that moment, locking them in with her.

At the top was a single, circular room. There were no windows. The only light came from a massive stone basin in the center of the room, filled with a shimmering, dark liquid that looked like liquid obsidian. Around the room were cages—massive, reinforced steel cages—but they weren't for people. They were too large. "You shouldn't be here, Arielle." I whirled around. A woman stood in the doorway. She was beautiful in a cold, predatory way, with hair as white as bone and eyes a piercing, unkind blue. Soline.

“You think you’re the only one?” “You wound me, Delia,” Gray chuckles. She slaps his arm playfully, letting him know it's time to get serious. He straightens up, as all signs of amusement snap from his face in a split second and holds still while she goes to work on the chain in his hands. She places both of her hands a few inches above the metal and whispers some incantation until a low blue glow can be seen from underneath her palms. When the glow fades she moves her warm copper brown hands and sighs.

Leo asked, his voice cutting through the doubt. ​Ren tapped a series of commands into his cracked tablet, his face pale in the screen’s glow. "The Summit Building is a 'World of Glass.' Every floor is transparent, monitored by AI-driven retinal scanners. There are no walls to hide behind, no shadows to slip through. It’s designed to be a temple of 'transparency,' but it’s actually a high-frequency kill-box. If we enter as shifters, the glass will vibrate at a frequency that will shatter our bones."

I felt like he was staring at my ass the whole time. We eventually came to a massive room, with whiteboards on every wall. My jaw dropped as they easily had ten times more worked out than I did. I walked along the walls for a couple of minutes taking it all in. “Don’t worry we have some help for you,” Hashem said, clapping his hands. I turned to see someone bring in Dr. Edger and … Dr. Karlsson?! “What the fuck,” I demanded, marching toward him, pointing my finger at his chest.

Be careful. The Chamber of Reflection was a circular room with marble floors and stained glass depicting an ancient battle between light and dark. Priest Gideon was already waiting in the center of the room, standing beneath a beam of sunlight from the dome. He looked older than Siron remembered, with dark circles under his eyes. “Siron,” he greeted, his voice soft but tense. “Thank you for coming.” Siron stopped a few steps away from him. She could feel Morat circling the room like a tiger in a cage, angry and uncomfortable.

I said. “You’re insane,” he said. “I know.” He stood up, rubbed his shoulder, and muttered, “Then I guess I’m going too.” \*\* The descent was quiet. No traps. No threats. Just silence. Until we reached the final room. A chamber of mirrors. Every wall reflected different versions of me. Some are angry. Some are broken. Some… dead. I flinched. “What is this?” Ronin stayed close. “Illusions?” “No,” I said. “These are possible futures.”