Chapter 37 Untitled Chapter
~Lyra POV~
I looked around at the vast forest and the first thought that surged into my mind was a frantic question. I could not understand what I was doing in the forest, and I could not understand how in the world I had gotten there.
The last thing I remembered was lying on the bed in the room that had become my prison, letting my thoughts spiral endlessly while hoping that Kael would return after leaving me all mushy and soaking wet with that unbearable ache throbbing between my legs.
I lifted my gaze toward the moon and realized it was full. Its light stretched across the clearing like a giant silver veil that poured over everything. Instead of making the place feel safer, it revealed more shadows than it cleared. The trees towered above me like silent giants watching me with unreadable eyes. The entire place felt unnaturally quiet, as if the whole world was holding its breath and waiting for something terrible to happen.
A sound cut through the silence, so faint yet so distinct that my heart lurched. I immediately turned my attention toward the direction it came from.
That was when I saw Kael.
He stood alone in the center of the clearing with his back turned to me. His shoulders were rigid, and his posture was so tense that it looked painful. Something about him felt wrong. The air around him felt heavy, almost suffocating, as if a storm was hovering right above him, waiting for the perfect moment to explode.
“Kael?” I called out, my voice leaving me as a trembling whisper that somehow carried across the trees.
He did not turn immediately, nor did he move in any way. He stood completely still. He looked like he was listening to something that I could not hear and could not sense, something that existed just outside the reach of my understanding.
When he finally turned his head slowly to look at me, something inside me twisted so painfully that it felt like a physical wound. The expression on his face was one I had never witnessed before. It was a deep soul crushing sadness, the kind that looked powerful enough to tear a person apart from the inside.
He opened his mouth as though he wanted to speak, but the words did not reach me. Instead, a sudden gust of wind surged between us and carried a sharp metallic scent into the air. My pulse jumped instantly. I recognized the scent without needing a second whiff. It was blood.
My gaze drifted down toward his torso, and I felt my breath empty entirely from my body. Crimson lines were sliding down his skin, blooming like dark flowers that spread across his chest with alarming speed.
Panic clawed ferociously up my throat. I tried to run to him because there was no universe in which I could stand there and watch him bleed like that. But the moment I tried to move, my body betrayed me. It felt impossibly heavy, as if something invisible had locked me in place. My legs moved, but I was not actually moving forward. No matter how hard I pushed, the distance between us never changed.
“I can't move. I can't come to you,” I whispered, my voice breaking with desperation and terror.
He lifted his hand toward me, but he could not reach me either. His fingers trembled with strain, and his breath came out in uneven sharp bursts.
I tried to use magic, but it was as if my magic had vanished. I could not feel the slightest spark. I could not sense even a flicker of the power that I had been practicing and memorizing. I remembered the spells clearly, especially the fire spell, yet nothing happened. Not even a faint glow. Frustration and helplessness slammed into me and I forced my gaze back to him, hoping for an answer.
He seemed to understand how desperately I was struggling because his expression shifted again. This time it carried something far worse than pain. It carried acceptance.
That feeling hit my spirit like a blade. His acceptance of whatever was coming tore through me with a raw force. His suffering felt like it was transmitting directly into my chest, and it made me feel like I needed to scream at him to fight. I needed him to move. I needed him to survive.
Before I could speak, a figure rose from the shadows behind him. It did not move like a normal creature. It moved like thick oil sliding over stone. The air around it felt poisoned and cold in a way that made the hair on my arms stand upright. I could not make out its face. I could only sense its intent pouring off it like a freezing wave. And yet there was something else. Something dangerously familiar in the way it moved or existed.
Every instinct inside me screamed for Kael to react, but he was too late.
The figure drove something sharp into his side. I saw his body jolt violently, and he let out a soft grunt of pain that tore something inside me straight down the middle.
“No. Kael. Please no,” I screamed, pouring every fragment of myself into the sound.
He fell to one knee with his hand pressed tightly against his bleeding side. Blood pooled beneath him in slow widening circles that devoured the earth. His strength did not leave him right away, but I could tell it was fading far too quickly. It was as though whatever had stabbed him carried a poison or a curse far more powerful than a mere blade.
The forest responded instantly. The light disappeared as if someone had smothered it. The moon flickered like a dying candle. The ground beneath Kael cracked like a mirror hit with a stone. Shadows rose from the fractures, curling around his legs and pulling with a force that made me feel like my own heart would split into pieces.
He looked at me one last time, and his eyes burned with a desperation that pierced straight into my chest.
“Forgive me, Lyra.”
His voice finally echoed inside my mind, soft and pleading, branding itself onto my thoughts with unbearable weight.
“It is my fault. It is all my fault. I am sorry,” he said, and the shadows swallowed him completely.
I woke up with a violent gasp that tore through my lungs.
I sat upright in my bed, clutching the sheets with shaking hands while struggling to breathe. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck and soaked the collar of my clothes. My chest felt unbearably tight, as though something invisible was pressing down on it with crushing force.
The room was dim with the early morning light, but even the gentle brightness felt tense and wrong, as if the dream had refused to release me and had followed me back into the real world.
I could still feel the presence of my wolf inside me. Although I still could not hear her voice, I could feel her trying to warn me, pushing against my consciousness with urgency.
Should I tell Kael? Would he understand?