Chapter 109 Threads
“She is dying.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Aria did not blink. She did not breathe. She simply sat there, staring at Maya as if the words might rearrange themselves into something survivable.
“What do you mean? If she’s sick I can help heal hear. ” Aria said desperately.
Maya’s hands were wrapped around an empty teacup. “It is,” she replied. “She is not ill. There is nothing wrong with her body. It is simply… time.”
Aria rose slowly to her feet. “How long has she known?”
“I think she has known for months,” Maya admitted. “She has been preparing things quietly. Putting affairs in order.”
A strange calm settled over Aria’s expression. It was not acceptance.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said.
Then she turned and walked back toward Elder Morgana’s door.
She did not knock.
Morgana was seated in her high-backed chair near the window, hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked exactly as she always did, composed and alert, as though she had been expecting this moment.
“You should have told me,” Aria said.
Morgana smiled faintly. “You would have tried to stop it.”
“Yes,” Aria replied. “I would have.”
“That is why I did not.”
Aria stepped closer. “How long?”
“Long enough to see to it that you are ready,” Morgana answered.
“That is not what I asked.”
“It is the only answer that matters.”
Aria moved closer. The air in the room felt thinner than before. The wards that normally hummed invisibly along the walls flickered at the edge of perception. Subtle. But unstable.
“I’m not ready to lose you,” Aria said.”Neither are Leo and Lily.”
Elder Morgana’s expression shifted into something quieter and more certain. “They are ready. More than you know.”
“They are three years old.”
“Age is not what determines readiness. Bloodline does.” She looked at Aria steadily. “What they carry has been waiting a long time. You have kept them safe long enough for it to take root properly. That is your work. That is done.”
“Is that why you are leaving now?” she asked.
Elder Morgana’s expression softened. “I am leaving because I have completed my work. Your path continues. Mine does not. Everything I have taught you was to prepare you for the upcoming days.”
“For Alexander?”
“And everything else he’ll throw at you.”
The room stilled.
Aria sat down. Not because she was calm. Because her legs decided for her.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“You would have spent every visit grieving instead of learning,” Elder Morgana said. “I could not afford that. Neither could you.”
It was logical. Aria hated that it was logical.
She looked at the elder’s hands folded in her lap. The same hands that had held hers on the edge of the Snoqualmie forest four years ago, when she was bleeding and broken and had no name worth keeping. Those hands had given her everything she had become.
Aria swallowed hard. “The twins need you.”
“They have you,” Morgana replied. “And they will need you more than they realize.”
A flicker moved along the far wall. The wards shimmered briefly, as though disturbed by something distant.
Elder Morgana noticed it too.
“It has begun,” she said quietly.
Aria’s pulse quickened. “What has begun?”
But Elder Morgana did not answer. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again with deliberate calm.
“Go back to your mate and pups,” she said. “Be with them.”
Reluctantly, Aria leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Elder Morgana’s hand closed around her wrist for a second.
“Do not let fear make your decisions,” she said softly. “Let it inform them.”
Aria left without looking back.
Kane was in his office when she got back to the tower. He looked up from the desk and read her face the way he always did. Quickly and without asking.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
She sat and told him everything. Elder Morgana’s explanation of the channels. Alexander’s plan. What Amanda could do and what Aria would need to anchor from the outside. She kept her voice level and her hands still and when she finished she looked at him and waited.
Kane was quiet for a moment.
He leaned back. His expression was contained. The face of a man doing math he did not like the answer to.
“She stays useful,” he said. “But I want someone on her at all times. She goes nowhere in this building alone.”
“She will notice.”
“Good. Let her.”
Aria nodded. That was fair.
Marcus was still in the building when Kane called him up. He came in without knocking and took the chair across from the desk without being asked. Aria stayed.
“Where are we?” Kane asked.
“Closer,” Marcus said. “Three of the five leaks trace back to the same access point. Someone with level two clearance and physical access to the east corridor. That narrows it to eleven people.”
“Cut it to five by the end of the week.”
“Working on it.” Marcus glanced at Aria, then back to Kane. “Devon’s network could help. He has eyes on Alexander’s outer circle that we don’t. If the leaks connect outward, his people might see the other end of the line.”
Kane nodded. “I already accepted his offer this morning. Coordinate with him.”
Something moved across Marcus’s face and settled before Aria could name it. He stood, said he would reach out to Devon before morning, and left.
Aria watched the door close. “He doesn’t fully trust Devon.”
“Marcus doesn’t fully trust anyone,” Kane said. “It’s why he’s good at his job. He didn’t even trust you when we started sneaking around.”
Aria gave him a sideways look. “You didn’t either.”
Kane didn’t deny it.
“You had him run background checks on me,” she continued. “You followed me twice. And you still pretended it was a coincidence when we ended up in the same places.”
His mouth curved slightly. “It’s called being cautious.”
“It’s called talking,” she corrected.
“And yet,” he said quietly, leaning closer, “you stayed.”
Her expression softened just a fraction. “I stayed because I couldn’t get rid of you.”
“Liar.” He smiled as he kissed her.
As if on cue, the overhead lights flickered.
Not dramatically. Just enough to be noticed.
Kane glanced upward. “That was not electrical.”
“No,” Aria agreed. “It felt like pressure.”
His phone buzzed with a building systems alert. Minor ward fluctuation. Residential level.
They looked at each other.
“Come on,” Kane said.
The hallway outside the twins’ playroom was calm. Too calm.
The guards stood at their posts.
“Everything secure?” Kane asked.
“Yes, sir,” one of them replied. “The wards flickered but there was no breach.”
Aria did not slow down. She pushed open the playroom door.
Lily and Leo were sitting on the rug.
Blocks were stacked in neat towers around them.
Crayons were scattered across paper.
It looked normal.
“Mama!” Leo said happily.
Aria crossed the room and knelt in front of them. She touched their faces, their arms, their hair.
“Did you feel anything?” she asked gently.
Lily tilted her head. “Feel what?”
“A shake. A loud noise. Anything strange.”
Leo shook his head. “No loud noise.”
Lily studied her mother carefully. “You are scared.”
Aria forced a small smile. “I am not scared.”
Lily’s tiny brow wrinkled. “Your heart is fast.”
Kane stepped closer. “It was the wards,” he explained calmly. “They flickered.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “Like the lights?”
“Yes,” Kane said.
Leo giggled. “That was me.”