Chapter 25

Chapter 25
Secrets in the Dark

The shadows whispering back surprised me.

Humming a language older than breath, they slithered like greasy fingers over the basement temple's walls, slithering around the bones and runes. My spine tingled as I purposefully made my way into the darkness. This site evoked memories of pain. mine. Someone else's. Every one of us.

I hadn't been followed in by Kade. He was unreadable and silent as he stood at the doorway. Perhaps even scared.

I wasn't.

Beneath my flesh, the Whispering Shadow beat like a second heartbeat. Since my previous surge, it had become silent, but now it purred like a beast in heat, delighted by the darkness leaking through the floor's crevices. The Ashgrave Forest, which was removed from maps, covered the temple. A place that only the deceased could recall.

A ragged altar spilled ancient blood that hadn't dried for ages as I crossed a collapsing pillar to get in the middle. My blood was scorched. My wolf growled.

The stone was marked with symbols that I had not been taught, but I instinctively recognized. The Whispering Shadow tightened its coils. It said a single word.

"Home."

I was more than simply the shadows. They belonged to  mine

There was a deep growl in the room, not mine. Not Kade's.

I whirled. Nobody was there.

Then I caught sight of her. Not in physical form. Not exactly. A reflection in an obsidian shard lying near the base of the altar. She had my face, just older. Angrier. She had a silver-black shine in her eyes. She was grinning as well.

Not at me. "Past" me.

Slowly, I turned around.

Behind me, the wall was melting. Like rotting bark, the shadows peeled back to expose a mural. Painted with crushed bone dust and dried blood.

It displayed a wolf. enormous. crowned with thorns. Eyes were sewn shut. Three figures one shouting, one bleeding, and one burning knelt beneath him. And a fourth, me, in the background. In chains. I'm laughing.

Posing for it is not something I recall.

I made contact with the picture. The wall groaned.

Everything broke the instant my fingertips touched the blind wolf's eyes.

I was no longer in the temple.

I was in a combat zone.

There are bodies everywhere. Faces I knew and faces I didn't, wolves split in two. Jake was standing on a hill of dead people.

He was grinning.

Until he wasn't.

When he saw me no,  her the me in the reflection, his smile vanished. Draped in darkness, she moved like smoke, and her voice shattered the heavens.

Then darkness.

I gasped when I awoke back in the temple.

But not by themselves.

He was present.

Kieran.

I didn't sense him coming in. I didn't smell him. However, he stood there, gazing at the mural as if it had just validated a horrible suspicion.

He touched me with his hand. He winced.

I said, "Tell me." "Now."

He clenched his jaw. "The Shadow Lords were more than simply myths. They were monarchs. Perhaps gods. And one of the strongest of them had a partner. The secret to his strength was her. His cage. His liberty.

I gazed at him. "You believe it to be me."

"I recognize you."

"But why why me?"

He didn't respond. He was not required to.

The mural. The blood. That was not my memory.

since it was.

since I  had experienced this previously.

No, it wasn't lived.

I was sealed. Resurrected. Ignored. Everything.

I muttered, "I was her." "I am her."

Kieran had fire in his eyes. "And they are aware."

"Who?"

He took a step back. "Everyone. Your previous pack. Jake. The Council. The Order of Whispering. The night the actual Jake passed away, they learned.

I blinked. "What the night?"

Shadows twisted around his boots as he took a step closer. "The Jake who turned you down? He wasn't that person. The imposter was the one.

"But " I felt my heart pounding. "You claimed that he was my phony partner."

"He was." Two years ago, the actual Jake passed away. killed. And they took his place. with a ship. to exert power over you.

My vision became hazy. Everything swayed.

"No. That isn't feasible.

Kieran remarked, "I saw him die." "And I witnessed the ritual that made the other one come to life."

I took a step back. The altar throbbed under me.

"Sowhat I experienced wasn't real at all?"

Kieran took a step forward. It was authentic. However, he wasn't.

Fury. Thick and unsightly, it clawed up my throat.

Now everything made clear. The denial. The quiet. the lack of a connection.

I was  designed to shatter.

I held onto the altar until my fingernails broke.

"And now?" I inquired.

A glance at the wall caught Kieran's attention. “Now, the real game starts.”

The temple shook.

Stone broke.

The darkness flinched.

Because something was awakening underneath the altar.

We all turned together.

A sliver of red light poured out from the base. Not fire. Not blood. Something more ancient.

I knelt and brushed the dust off.

One more mural.

This one, however, was moving.

A living seal.

A beating heart.

A lock.

"Avoid touching it," Kieran growled.

It's too late.

The air howled as soon as my hand passed over it.

A cry erupted from the altar.

I saw stars after being thrown back and hitting the wall.

And something that hadn't been there for thousands of years stood in the center of the room.

A man.

Encased in nothingness. Ash-crowned.

The pits of eternity were his eyes.

He gave me a glance. And grinned.

Then he rasped, "My queen." "You returned to get me."

The room shook at Kieran's roar.

The shadow-man flicked a finger at his lunge.

Kieran struck the wall with such force that the stone broke.

"No!" I ran to him and screamed.

However, the man moved in between us.

My face was touched by him.

And I remembered in a breath.

Not only life. Empires, armies, and blood.

I could recall his name.

Malrik.

First Shadow Lord.

My friend.

Not Jake.

Not Kade.

Not Kieran.

He. Then we were both engulfed by the shadows.

Kieran's eyes spun as he coughed up blood. Now the temple was deserted. Quiet. Till a voice that wasn't Lily's murmured in his ear. It was the first since the last apocalypse.

"You don't own her. She was never.

And Kieran smiled, broken and bleeding.

As he hadn't disclosed everything to Lily.

Not quite yet.

The second prophecy is unimportant

Not the kid.