Chapter 108 What the Elder Knows
Aria was up before Kane the next morning. She wasn’t able to sleep all night. She stood at the window for a moment, watching the light settle over the grounds, then moved to get dressed.
Amanda’s words from the night before had not left her. Not the admission about Alexander. Not the deal she had made to survive. And not the last thing she had said on the ridge, quiet and direct:
That is why I need your help.
Aria had not answered her then. She told her she would think about it. But by the time she took her bath and got dressed, she had made her decision.
If Amanda needed her help, Aria needed to understand exactly what she was agreeing to. She knew for a fact she couldn’t trust her half sister. But she also knew she could be useful. And there was only one person she trusted to help her make such crucial decisions.
She took the elevator to her former apartment where Elder Morgana lived.
She knocked at the door.
It opened after a moment.
Elder Morgana stood in the doorway. She was dressed, composed, her silver hair pinned back the way it always was. But her color was off. There was a tightness around her eyes that Aria noticed immediately.
“Come in,” the elder said.
They followed her inside. The room was warm, the curtains half drawn. A cup of tea sat on the side table, barely touched.
“You don’t look too well,” Aria said with a worried look. “Are the twins tiring you out?”
Elder Morgana waved a hand. “Of course not. I am fine. A passing thing. Sit down.”
Aria looked at her for a moment longer, then sat.
Elder Morgana lowered herself into her chair with the careful precision of someone managing discomfort they had no intention of discussing. “Tell me, child. What brings you here?”
Aria told her. All of it. The ridge. The creature. Alexander’s terms. The deal Amanda had made and why. And the last thing Amanda had said before the silence swallowed the rest of the night.
Elder Morgana listened without interrupting.
“You know what he is building toward,” she said when Aria was finished. It was not a question.
“Yes,” Aria said.
Elder Morgana nodded slowly. “Alexander is not trying to take power the way most would,” she said. “He is not positioning himself above other Alphas through challenge or territory. He is going underneath all of it. The channels that carry Moon Healer power do not exist in isolation. They are threaded through bloodlines as anchors. Without those anchors, the channels drift. They cannot be held or directed.”
She paused, letting that settle.
“What Alexander wants is to collapse that system. Not destroy it. Redirect it. If he can force the channels open using the creature, he pulls all of that power through a single point. Himself. Every Alpha line, every healer line, feeding into one source with no anchor left standing.
“The easiest way for him to get power was through moon fever,” she continued. “But it seems he underestimated your strength. And since you humiliated him, he’s out for revenge. In a bigger way.”
Aria felt the familiar cold clarity she got when something she already suspected was confirmed out loud.
“And Amanda,” she said.
Elder Morgana nodded. “Her ability is rare. She can work inside an active channel without triggering the bloodline response. That means she can move within the current Alexander would create without being swept by it. She can find the point where he is drawing the power through and close it from the inside.”
“While I hold the outside,” Aria said.
“Yes. You anchor. She moves. Without both, it does not work.”
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
Elder Morgana looked at her.
“I saw a tattoo on Amanda. A sigil mark,” Aria kept her voice even. “I recognized it. It was the same mark we saw at the sanctuary haven. When we were first attacked.”
The elder was quiet for a long moment.
“I know the mark,” she said at last.
“Then you know what it means.”
Elder Morgana set her hands in her lap. “It does not change what I told you. Her ability is real. Her knowledge of the channels is real. And she is the only person positioned to close what he opens.”
“But,” Aria said.
“But you are not wrong to be careful.” The elder met her eyes. “She may be capable of helping you defeat him. That does not mean she cannot also choose not to. Watch the mark. If it activates, she has made her choice.”
Aria held her gaze. “And if she does?”
Elder Morgana leaned forward slightly. When she spoke again, her voice dropped to just above a whisper. She told Aria exactly what to do. Three sentences. Precise and quiet.
Aria did not repeat it back. She did not need to. She nodded once.
“Good,” the elder said, and settled back into her chair.
Aria headed out to see Maya and check on the twins.
She saw Maya coming from the direction of the twins’ room with an empty cup in her hand. Maya spotted her and slowed.
“They are fine,” Maya said, reading her face. “Both of them. They are still sleeping though.”
Aria exhaled. “Good.”
Maya fell into step beside her and they walked toward the couch and took a seat.
“How are things with Marcus?” Aria asked.
Maya looked at her cup. A small smile, but complicated. “Good. Honestly good.”
“But?”
Maya set the cup down on the table between them. “I want him to turn me.”
Aria did not react immediately. She gave it the space it deserved.
“You have thought about this,” she said.
“For a while now,” Maya said. “It is not something I landed on quickly.”
“Does Marcus know?”
“I told him last week.”
“What did he say?”
“That it was my choice. That he would not push me either way.” Maya looked at her. “But I could see it in him. He is afraid of getting it wrong. Of the turn being hard on me. Of me resenting it later.”
Aria looked at her steadily. “Those are not small fears.”
“No,” Maya agreed. “But I am not asking because of him. I am asking because of me. Because of what I want to be part of.” She paused. “The pack. The twins growing up. All of it. I do not want to be on the outside of that.”
Aria understood that. She did not say it was simple, because it was not. A turn carried weight that did not fully show itself until after. The body changed. The instincts changed. Some people moved through it cleanly. Others did not.
“Whatever you decide,” Aria said, “make sure you are deciding it for yourself. Not for what you think it will give you with him.”
Maya nodded. “I know.”
Aria stood. “Talk to me again before you decide anything.”
“I will.” Maya stood too. She walked with Aria toward the corridor.
At the doorway she stopped.
“Aria.”
Something in her tone made Aria turn back fully. Maya’s expression had shifted. The warmth was still there but something else had come into it. Something careful and reluctant.
“There is something you should know,” Maya said quietly. “About Elder Morgana.”
Aria waited.
Maya met her eyes.
“She is dying.”