Chapter 103 This Is Not Kiara

Chapter 103 This Is Not Kiara
Liam's POV

Samuel stepped forward before I could stop him.

"You will watch your tongue," he said, his voice echoing in the room. "You are standing before the Alpha and you will speak with the respect that–"

None of the three witches even looked at him.

Fiona, the one who carried herself like she had been old for a very long time stepped forward instead and looked at me carefully, walking slowly around me.

"You have been chasing something for many years," she said. "A ball, rolling just ahead of you. You can see it. You've been close enough to touch it more than once." She paused. "But catching it will cost you more than you've calculated."

"Can you speak in clearer terms?" I asked.

"The cost doesn't always come from the direction you're watching," she said simply.

I held her gaze and said nothing.

I didn't fully believe them. But I had a feeling I knew what the ball was, and the feeling sat in my stomach with the weight of something I'd been carrying for fourteen years.

The three of them were still looking at me and I remembered exactly why I had always disliked witches. They never stopped at what they were asked. They went further, looking for things in places you hadn't offered them access to.

I took a step back.

"I didn't bring you here to look at me," I said. "I brought you here for my mate."

The three of them exchanged a glance and smiled at each other.

Then Flora stepped forward and said exactly when Kiara had lost consciousness and described how strangely she had been acting.

"They're extraordinary," Mrs. Fernworth murmured, pressing her hand to her chest.

Samuel was staring at them with an expression he was clearly trying to keep neutral and failing entirely.

Even I felt something shift reluctantly in my chest.

Then all three of them burst out laughing.

I stared at them.

Fauna recovered first, wiping her eye. "The physician," she managed. "He told us everything on the way here. All of it. In considerable detail." She pressed her lips together, trying to contain the rest of it. "We didn't want to waste time."

Mrs. Fernworth's face went pink and she sighed with embarrassment.

I dragged my hand slowly down my face.

This was going to be a very long day.

"Can we see her?" Flora asked, composing herself.

"This way," I said.

I thanked the physician briefly and asked Samuel to escort him out, then led the witches through the corridor toward Kiara's room with Mrs. Fernworth behind us.

The witches moved through the palace the way visitors rarely did, looking up, pausing, genuinely admiring.

"This is exceptional work," Fauna said, tilting her head back to study the ceiling of the long corridor. "The craftsmen who built this wing– how long ago?"

"My grandfather commissioned it. Seventy years, roughly."

"The proportions are extraordinary. The way the light comes through at this angle–" She gestured.

I looked up despite myself. "The windows were positioned deliberately. My grandfather was particular about where the light fell in the morning. He said a palace that woke up well was a palace that ran well."

"He wasn't wrong," Flora said.

I almost smiled.

We walked and they asked questions about the stonework, the history of the east wing, a tapestry on the wall that I had passed so many times I had stopped seeing it. I found myself answering more than I'd intended, and somewhere between the tapestry and the second junction I told them about my grandfather, and they told me something about themselves.

The coven had been larger once. Much larger. Established, rooted, woven into the fabric of the pack the way certain things become invisible the longer they're present. You stop noticing them until they're gone.

"Harlan," Fiona said, and the name arrived in the corridor without the warmth the conversation had carried. "He went to your father. Privately. Convinced him that the witches were a destabilizing force. That we could not be trusted. That the pack would be stronger without us." Her voice remained even. "Your father was a good man in many ways. But he was also afraid of things he didn't understand, and Harlan knew exactly which fears to press."

I said nothing.

"He pressured your father into acting against us. Most of us were killed quietly, over years, without anyone outside the inner circle knowing it was happening. The rest went into hiding. Some didn't survive that either." She paused. "Some died of hunger."

My chest tightened. I had no knowledge of any of it and the guilt of that sat heavy.

"If he hadn't done it," I said, more to myself than to them, "you would have seen what he was planning."

"Yes," Fiona said. "We would have."

I thought about my mother. About the two graves that shouldn't have existed. About a fourteen-year-old boy who knew the truth and had no way to prove it.

"My Alpha." Fauna appeared at my side and patted my hand briefly. "The past is already written. Focus on what's ahead."

I looked at her.

It was oddly steadying. I didn't entirely know what to do with that.

We reached Kiara's door.

I pushed it open and stopped.

The heat hit immediately, dry and sharp, nothing like a room should feel at this hour. I crossed to the bed without thinking.

Her skin was burning.

Last night she had been ice cold. Now the opposite, and somehow worse for the contrast. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead and pulled it back from the heat.

"Do something," I said, turning to the witches. "Please. Whatever you came here to do."

"Give us space," Flora said quietly.

I stepped back. All three of them moved to the bed, surrounding it, and Fiona reached forward and placed her palm gently against Kiara's forehead.

She gasped.

Sharp and involuntary. The sound of someone who has touched something entirely unexpected. She pulled her hand back and stood staring at her own palm for a moment.

The room went completely still.

I moved to her. "What is it? What did you feel? Can someone tell me what is happening to her?"

Fiona looked up at me.

Her expression was careful in the way of someone deciding how to say something they know will not land easily.

"My Alpha," she said.

"Yes. Yes I'm hearing you." I almost peed on my body

She held my gaze steadily.

"To be sincere with you–" She paused. "This is not Kiara.”