Chapter 90: The Realm of Truth

The light swallowed me whole.

For a second—or maybe an eternity—I felt weightless, like my bones had melted into air. My ears rang, my skin burned, and then all of it snapped away.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the clearing anymore.

I was standing in a vast hall of mirrors. Floor to ceiling, polished silver walls stretched in every direction, reflecting me back a thousand times. But none of the reflections were the same. Some were older. Some younger. Some looked monstrous. Some broken. Some radiant.

All of them were me.

And standing among them, calm as ever, was Ravenna.

“Where are we?” I demanded, my voice echoing through the glass.

“In you,” she replied. “This is your blood. Your past. Your future. The truth you’ve been running from your entire life.”

The mirrors rippled. Images shifted. I saw flashes of my childhood—my mother cooking, my father laughing, my brother chasing me through the yard. Then it twisted—wolves tearing through the walls, fire eating everything, blood spilling across the floor.

“Stop,” I said, stepping back. “I don’t need to see this.”

“Yes, you do.” Ravenna’s voice was firm. “You’ve blamed Gregory all these years. You’ve built your life around that grief, that vengeance. But you’ve never asked the real question.”

“What question?”

“Why did he choose you?”

I froze.

Her eyes glowed brighter. “Out of every wolf, every human, every hybrid… why did he set his sights on you, Roxanne Devlin? What made you different?”

The mirrors shifted again. Now they showed Gregory—his sharp smile, his cold eyes, his hands covered in blood. But behind him was a shadow. A woman. Her face obscured, her hair black as ink.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

Ravenna stepped closer, her reflection merging with mine in the glass. “My sister. Your grandmother.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“Yes,” Ravenna said, her voice low and deliberate. “You think you’re the result of an accident? A child who slipped through the cracks of an experiment? No, Roxanne. You are the culmination of generations. My blood. My line. The Harbingers were never just chosen—they were bred. And you are the last of us.”

The mirrors rippled again, showing women through history—faces that looked uncannily like mine. Some dressed in armor, some in cloaks, some with crowns. All with golden eyes. All standing before armies or ruins.

“No,” I said, backing away. “No, that can’t be true.”

“It is,” Ravenna insisted. “Your family wasn’t destroyed because of Gregory’s whims. They were destroyed because of what you are. Because the world has always feared you. And they were right to.”

I shook my head, my throat tight. “I’m not a monster.”

She smiled faintly. “Then why does the world tremble every time you draw breath?”

\---

Meanwhile, outside the clearing…

The fog had collapsed inward the moment Roxanne vanished.

Aidan lunged into the mist, shouting her name, but his hand caught only empty air. He stumbled, teeth bared, and slammed his fist against the dirt. “No! No, damn it!”

“She took her,” Elena snapped, her voice sharp with panic. “That witch actually took her.”

“Where?” Ethan demanded, spinning his tablet around as it pinged and blinked. “I can’t get a signal. Whatever that was, it fried every scanner I’ve got.”

“She’s not gone,” Echo said quietly. She stood completely still, eyes shut, as though listening. “I can feel her. But she’s… far. Like she’s on the other side of a wall.”

“That’s helpful,” Elena muttered. “What kind of wall are we talking? Brick? Magical doom wall? Because I’ve got different arrows for different situations.”

Aidan grabbed Echo’s shoulders, his voice cracking. “Can you reach her? Can you pull her back?”

Echo shook her head. “Not yet. She’s in a trial. If we drag her out, we might kill her.”

“Trial?” Callum growled. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Ravenna’s forcing her to face the truth,” Mara said, stepping forward at last. Her face was pale but steady. “And if she survives it… she won’t come back the same.”

Elena threw her arms up. “Oh, fantastic. So she’s either dead or evil. Great odds. Love this for us.”

“Shut up,” Aidan barked. His hands trembled as he dragged them through his hair. “She’s coming back. She has to.”

Ethan glanced at him nervously. “And what if she doesn’t?”

Aidan looked up, eyes blazing. “Then I’ll burn the world down until I find her.”

\---

Back inside the hall of mirrors…

Ravenna circled me slowly, her reflection multiplying in every panel. “You feel it, don’t you? The power in your blood. The weight in your bones. You’ve fought it for so long, but it’s part of you. And the longer you deny it, the more it will break you.”

“I don’t want it,” I snapped.

She stopped in front of me, her eyes boring into mine. “You don’t get to want or not want. You are. You always were. The Harbinger doesn’t choose the role—the role chooses her.”

I clenched my fists, trembling. “Then maybe I’ll break the role.”

She smiled, almost proud. “Spoken like a true queen.”

The mirrors rippled one last time. This time they showed me—not as I was, but as I could be. Leading the hybrids. Standing above ruins. Armies kneeling at my feet. Aidan by my side… or dead at my feet.

Two paths. Both soaked in blood.

“Choose,” Ravenna whispered. “Lead them… or destroy them. But do not pretend you can run. That time is over.”

The mirrors closed in, my reflections pressing closer until I could barely breathe.

And for the first time in a long time, I was truly terrified of myself.