Chapter 119: The Test

The war room the next evening didn’t feel like the same place.

Normally, it buzzed with a sort of restless energy — Elena throwing in sarcastic comments, Ethan hammering on his keyboard, Echo pacing like a silent shadow, Aidan sharpening blades he didn’t actually need to sharpen. But tonight, it was heavy. Like the air had been thickened by everything we hadn’t said yet.

The lamps burned low. The long table was cleared, except for the journal Rhea had placed in the center, its cracked leather cover looking almost too fragile for the weight of what it carried.

I sat with my arms folded, trying not to fidget. My fingers twitched anyway.

Aidan was beside me, his body wound tight as a coiled spring. He hadn’t said much all day, except to remind me — several times — that if anything went wrong tonight, we were walking out. That I was walking out.

Ethan, meanwhile, was pacing. Not his usual anxious pacing, but sharp, purposeful strides, like his brain was moving too fast for his body to keep up. “I’ve run the numbers six times. We’ll limit the exposure to under three minutes. No full trance, no deep dive. Just surface contact. Enough to test resonance, nothing more.”

Aidan scoffed. “And if the ‘surface’ pulls her under?”

“It won’t,” Ethan snapped, then immediately pinched the bridge of his nose. “I mean… statistically, it shouldn’t.”

“Comforting,” Aidan muttered darkly.

Elena leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “I don’t know, I’m actually kind of rooting for this. Worst case, she sprouts horns, fire shoots out of her ears, and we finally know which of us has to slay her. Best case, she learns some cool ancient wolf hacks and we all level up.”

I gave her a look. “You’re not helping.”

She grinned. “Didn’t say I was trying.”

Echo had been silent until then, but finally she spoke from her post by the wall. “Joking or not, Elena’s right about one thing. We need to see what’s inside you, Roxanne. Selene already knows. The longer we don’t, the bigger the gap between what she can do and what we can stop.”

Rhea cleared her throat softly. Everyone turned toward her. “The journal… it says the Harbingers before you were tested too. Not in labs. In circles. Rituals. They were shown pieces of themselves so they could learn control.” She hesitated, her eyes flicking toward Aidan. “But it also says some failed. Not because they weren’t strong — but because they weren’t ready.”

“Exactly,” Aidan said instantly, like her words had been proof of everything he’d argued. “She’s not ready.”

I straightened in my chair. “Stop deciding that for me.”

His jaw tightened. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“From myself?” I shot back.

The silence after that was sharp enough to cut.

Finally, Ethan broke it. “It’s almost midnight. If we’re doing this, we do it now.”

\---

The “circle” wasn’t really a circle. Not the way the journal described. We didn’t have ancient stones, or blood-marked altars, or the sacred earth of the first packs. What we had was Ethan, a roll of chalk, and Echo’s knowledge of sigils she’d memorized over years of watching the Creed.

The war room floor became something else entirely. A series of interlocking runes, spirals, and wards. At the center: a space barely big enough for me to sit cross-legged.

Elena leaned against the table, watching Ethan finish the last lines. “So what happens if she explodes? Do I at least get a warning, or are we talking sudden kaboom?”

“Not funny,” Aidan growled.

“Little funny,” she argued.

“Not funny,” he repeated, his voice like stone.

I swallowed hard and stepped into the circle.

The air felt heavier immediately, like stepping into a pool of water. My skin prickled, every hair standing on end.

“You okay?” Aidan asked, his voice low, just for me.

I forced a nod. “Yeah.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he crouched just outside the chalk line, close enough that I could see every flicker in his golden eyes.

Ethan set his laptop on the edge of the circle, screens glowing with graphs and monitors I didn’t understand. “Alright. Just breathe, Roxanne. Don’t force it. Let the energy find you.”

Echo knelt too, her hands steady on her knees, eyes fixed on the runes. “Remember — it’s a mirror, not a door. If you treat it like a door, it will pull you through.”

Great. No pressure.

I closed my eyes.

And the world shifted.

\---

At first it was just sound. A low hum, like wind moving through trees. Then whispers. Layered, distant, like a hundred voices murmuring all at once.

I fought the urge to pull back. I focused on my breathing. In. Out.

The whispers grew louder. One voice rose above the others. A woman’s. Smooth. Cold.

“Little Harbinger…”

My pulse spiked.

I felt heat coil in my chest, spread to my veins, burning like liquid fire. My eyes flew open — but the war room was gone.

I was standing in a forest.

The moon above was blood-red. The trees bent inward, their branches clawing at the sky.

And at the center of it all, on a stone throne wrapped in roots, sat Selene.

Her golden eyes glowed like embers. Her smile was sharp enough to draw blood.

“I was wondering when they’d let you in,” she purred.

\---

I stumbled back. “This isn’t real. It’s the circle. It’s just—”

“Reflection?” She tilted her head. “Oh no, little one. This is very real. This is what’s inside you. My gift. My seed.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” She stood, slow and deliberate. Her dress shimmered like shadow. Her voice wrapped around me like silk and smoke. “Why do you think you survived Gregory’s knives when the others didn’t? Why do you think the Creed whispers your name like it’s a prophecy? Because you’re not just Roxanne Devlin. You’re mine. The last Harbinger. The one who will break the circle, not seal it.”

“No,” I whispered, though my chest burned with every word she spoke.

“Yes,” she said simply.

Her hand reached out. I saw claws, black as obsidian, stretch toward me. “Take it. Accept it. And I will make you more than you ever dreamed.”

“Roxanne!”

Aidan’s voice cut through the trees like lightning. I gasped. For a moment, the forest flickered — the war room flashed back into focus.

I saw Aidan, his hand pressed against the chalk line, his eyes wild. Ethan shouting something I couldn’t hear. Elena gripping her crossbow like she was ready to shoot the circle itself.

Then the forest slammed back into place.

Selene’s smile widened.

“They can’t save you from yourself,” she whispered. “But I can.”

\---

“Roxanne, fight her!” That was Echo’s voice, sharp and commanding, echoing faintly as though across water.

I clutched my head. My knees buckled. Selene’s presence was everywhere — in my bones, in my blood, in the fire burning under my skin.

“I’m not yours,” I snarled.

Her golden eyes flashed. “Then prove it.”

The ground split beneath me. Flames roared up, swallowing the forest in fire.

I screamed—

And the world shattered.

\---

I was back in the war room, gasping, choking on air that felt too heavy to breathe.

Aidan was inside the circle, arms wrapped around me even though the chalk line was smudged and broken now. His face was pale, his hands shaking.

“What the hell did you do?” he shouted at Ethan. “She almost—she was—”

“She was in control,” Ethan snapped back, though his voice cracked. “If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be here now!”

“She nearly burned alive!” Aidan roared.

Elena slammed her hands on the table. “Hey! Shut it! She’s breathing. That’s what matters.”

My chest heaved. My skin still tingled like it had been branded. And in my mind, one whisper lingered.

“Prove it.”