Chapter 15: LOOK BACK HARDER

Aria's POV

On the sixth day the Abyss starts lying to us.

That’s the only way I can describe it. We’re in the middle of training, I’m holding seven threads at once, my head is screaming but I’m managing it. Then the cavern walls do something they’ve never done before.

They go completely dark.

Not slowly, not like evening coming. Just off. Like someone flipped a switch and killed the light at the source.

Total darkness.

I drop every thread right away.

“Kael.”

“I feel it.” His voice is close. He’s already moving. “Don’t move, stay right where you are.”

“What’s happening?”

“The Abyss is reacting to something.” His voice is extra controlled, which means shit is serious. “Something up above.”

Above.

Elena.

“What is she doing?” I ask into the dark. “Can you see it?”

“Working on it.” A pause. I hear him moving, he’s shifted into shadow form. I can tell by how his presence feels...more spread out. “She did something big, big enough to mess with the Abyss from up there.”

“How big?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

That’s how I know it’s bad, Kael doesn’t pause on small stuff.

“Kael.” My voice comes out sharper than I meant. “How bad?”

“She accelerated the ritual,” he says. “Whatever timeline she had, she moved it up.”

The dark feels heavier.

I stand completely still and feel my wolf pacing inside my chest. She’s restless and pissed, picking up on whatever the Abyss is picking up on.

“How much time do we have?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“Aria...”

“Just guess, Kael.”

He pauses.

“Two weeks,” he says. “Maybe more.”

Two weeks.

Two weeks until Elena finishes a ritual that will steal all that power for herself and break the pack bond for every wolf up there. There’s a six-year-old kid up there who already lost her shift, Ruth is alone. Sophie stands at the gate every morning. And I’m down here with a wolf that’s only half awake.

Two weeks.

The dark starts to lift.

Slowly the walls light up again with that deep pulse. But it feels different now. Agitated, like the Abyss itself is unsettled.

Kael is standing across the cavern in shadow form. His silver eyes are tracking the walls, reading something in the light that I don’t understand yet.

“Tell me everything,” I say.

He looks at me.

“The Vorryn coven,” he says. “They’ve arrived. They’re at the border of your pack’s territory.” He moves closer but stops a few feet away. “That’s what changed things, Elena was working alone until now. The coven showing up gives her a lot more power for the ritual.”

“How many?”

“At least six, maybe more.”

Six Vorryn witches sitting at the edge of my pack’s land.

My dad has no clue what’s in his own house.

My brothers, my mom, Derek still recovering, the kids at the orphanage.

Ruth.

A cold feeling settles deep in my gut.

“We have to go up,” I say.

“Aria.”

“Now. Today. We have to...”

“You’re not ready.” His voice is firm. “I know what you’re feeling. I can feel it through the bond, but listen to me.” He steps closer. Those silver eyes lock on mine. “You go up there right now and you’re walking into six Vorryn witches plus a ritual that’s been building for three years. With a half-awake wolf and Starweaver magic you still can’t control fully. You will die. And then everything else dies with you.”

“And if I stay here and she finishes the ritual...”

“Then we go up and fix the aftermath,” he says. “A completed ritual can be reversed, death can’t.”

I stare at him.

“Reversed?” I say. “You didn’t tell me that before.”

“You didn’t need to know before.”

“Kael.” My voice goes low. “What else haven’t you told me?”

He looks at me.

“Sit down,” he says.

“I don’t want to sit.”

“Aria.”

“Tell me while I’m standing.”

He glances up at the ceiling for a second, the way he does when he’s figuring out how to say something hard.

“The Starweaver magic,” he says. “What it can really do when it’s fully developed.” He meets my eyes. “You know about the threads, the fate sight, moving things, showing truth. That’s just the surface.”

I wait.

“A fully developed Starweaver can rewrite moments,” he says. “Not change the past or time travel. But take a moment that just happened...seconds old...and rewrite it.” He holds my gaze. “If Elena finishes the ritual, it’s bad. But if you’re fully developed by then, you can rewrite the moment it completes. Take it back like it never happened.”

The cavern goes dead silent.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I ask carefully.

“Because it’s the most dangerous thing Starweavers can do,” he says. “Rewriting a moment takes everything you have. Everything, if you try it before you’re ready, you don’t just fail.” He pauses. “You unravel.”

“Unravel.”

“The magic turns on you instead,” he says. “It starts rewriting you. I’ve seen it once, Mira’s apprentice. Young and cocky, tried to rewrite something too big too soon.” He stops. “There was nothing left, not even threads.”

The Abyss keeps breathing.

I breathe with it.

“So you need me fully developed before we go up,” I say.

“Yes.”

“How long does that normally take?”

“Years.” He looks at me. “But you’re not normal. For you… three or four weeks. If we train every hour of every day.”

Three or four weeks.

Elena has four weeks to finish her ritual.

I have four weeks to become strong enough to undo it.

The math sucks.

“Then we don’t waste any more time,” I say.

“Aria, you need rest, your body...”

“How many hours did you sleep last night?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer.

“How many, Kael?”

“It’s different for me.”

“It’s not. How many?”

“I don’t need sleep the same way...”

“Then teach me to need it less,” I say. “Or work around it. Train me while I eat, train me while I rest. I don’t care.” I step closer. “We have four weeks and you just told me I can undo everything if I get strong enough. So make me strong enough.”

He looks at me for a long moment.

Something crosses his face.

“You understand what we’re asking your body to handle,” he says quietly. "Four weeks of hard training. The nosebleeds will get worse. The headaches too, some days you’ll shake just trying to hold one thread. It’s going to hurt. Every day.”

“I’ve been in pain for three years,” I say. “At least this pain is for something.”

He searches my face.

Whatever he sees, he accepts it.

“Six hours of sleep,” he says. “Non-negotiable, the brain locks in the development while you sleep. Cutting it short slows us down.”

“Fine.”

“You eat when I say eat.”

“Fine.”

“And when I say stop, you stop.” His voice gets harder. “I don’t care if you’re in the middle of something. If I say stop it means your body is hitting a limit, pushing past it will set us back days, you stop immediately.”

“Fine,” I say. “But same goes for you.”

He blinks. “What?”

“The curse pressure,” I say. “You’ve been dealing with it alone. When it gets bad you don’t hide it, I can feel it through the bond, Kael. That tightening. You think I can’t but I can.” I hold his eyes. “When it gets bad, you tell me, and we handle it together.”

He looks at me.

Something in his face softens.

“Deal,” he says quietly.

I nod.

He nods.

“From the beginning,” he says, moving back to the center. “All seven threads, faster than before.”

I take my position.

The threads come right away, faster than this morning, faster than yesterday. Like they’ve been waiting.

Seven threads, steady.

“Now,” Kael says. “Find Elena’s connection.”

I find it, that dark fake gold.

“Find the coven,” he says.

I freeze. “I can do that from here?”

“Try.”

I reach further. Past the pack, past the familiar threads, all the way to the border where the six Vorryn witches are.

I find them.

Their threads don’t look normal. They’re braided together, thicker, darker, all tangled up on purpose. A coven bond, six people turned into one weapon.

It’s strong.

And it feels very wrong.

“I see them,” I say through my teeth. My sinuses are burning from holding everything.

“Good,” Kael says. “Hold all of it, don’t drop.”

“I’m holding.”

“Hold it longer.”

I hold.

My nose starts bleeding.

“Don’t stop,” Kael says. He always sees it first. “Keep holding.”

I keep holding.

The threads shake.

I steady them.

Then the coven bond pulses, like it noticed me looking.

“Kael,” I say carefully. “Something just noticed me.”

“The coven,” he says, voice sharp now. “Drop everything and move, now.”

I drop the threads and run.

He’s already moving too. Shadow form, super fast. He grabs my arm and pulls me into the narrow passage back toward the main area.

Behind us the cavern walls go dark again.

But this time it’s not the Abyss.

Something reached down and looked back at me.

We don’t stop until we’re deep in the main space near the glowing plants, as far from the connection to above as possible.

Kael lets go of my arm and turns to face me.

“They felt you looking,” he says.

“I noticed.” My heart is pounding. “Can they reach us down here?”

“No.” He says it fast and sure. “The Abyss is mine. Nothing gets in without my okay.” His jaw tightens. “But they know someone with Starweaver sight just looked at their coven bond.”

“Does that help Elena?”

“It tells her you’re alive,” he says.

The words hit hard.

Elena.

The one who watched me jump.

She’s been thinking I’m dead, now she knows I’m not.

“How long before she changes her plans?” I ask.

“She’s already changing them,” he says.

I look at him.

“She’s going to move faster,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Which means we have less than fiur weeks.”

“Yes.”

I press my hands to my face.

Four weeks just turned into two, maybe less. Elena knows I’m alive, she has six Vorryn witches, a ritual ready to go, and a whole pack that trusts her completely.

And I have seven threads, a half-awake wolf, and this thousand-year-old guy in front of me.

“Tell me what to do,” I say into my hands.

“Look at me,” he says.

I drop my hands.

He’s right there, close.

Those silver eyes are steady.

“She knows you’re alive,” he says. “That’s not only bad.”

“How is that not bad?”

“Because she was too confident before,” he says. “She thought you were gone, now she’s scared. And scared people rush.” His face hardens. “Rushing is where mistakes happen.”

I breathe in and out.

The Abyss breathes with me, the glowing plants pulse slowly like none of this matters to them.

“She’s going to try to finish fast,” I say. “Before I can stop her.”

“Yes.”

“So we use that,” I say. “We let her think she’s winning, let her rush, let her fuck up.” I look at him. “And we get ready.”

Something changes in his face. He looks almost proud.

“Yes,” he says.

“We have two weeks,” I say. “Maybe less, you’re going to push me harder than ever. I’m going to learn everything, and when we go up there, we end this.”

He watches me for a long moment.

“One condition,” he says.

“What?”

“Whatever happens up there,” his voice drops, “you stay alive. That’s the only condition, everything else comes second.”

I look at him.

At what that really means.

“Deal,” I say.

He nods.

Steps back.

“From the beginning,” he says, back in training mode. “All seven threads. Faster. And this time if something looks at you…” Those silver eyes lock on mine. “You look back harder.”

I move to the center.

The threads come easy now.

Seven of them.

Mine.

I look back harder.