Chapter 15 A Glimpse of The Old
Lana's POV
The force of it knocked Damon backward, his assassins scattering like leaves in a hurricane. Dust and debris filled the tunnel, choking and blinding. Through the chaos, something massive rose from the depths below, a figure wreathed in shadow and violet light.
Nyx.
The ancient being's form solidified above the crater, her violet eyes blazing with an anger that made the walls shake. Her presence was so overwhelming that even Damon, for all his Council backing, dropped to his knees in submission.
"You dare compromise my Champion?" Nyx's voice was thunder and starlight, ancient and terrible. "You dare attempt to separate an Eclipse Wolf from her mate bond before she's even fully awakened?"
"I…we…the Council…" Damon stammered, scrambling backward.
"The Council sent you." It wasn't a question. Nyx descended into the tunnel, her form growing more solid, more terrifyingly real with each moment. "The Council thought they could steal what was never theirs to take. They have forgotten what it means to cross the old magic."
She turned her gaze toward Damon's assassins, and they crumbled. Not killed, simply unmade, their forms dissolving into wisps of shadow that dissipated like smoke. It happened in seconds, a dozen warriors reduced to nothing without Nyx even touching them.
Damon turned to run, but Nyx gestured, and he froze mid-stride, his body locked in place by magic that predated the Council by centuries.
"You will go back to them," Nyx said to Damon, her voice now almost conversational despite the devastating power behind each word. "You will tell them that the Eclipse Wolf is under my protection. You will tell the Council that any further attempts to separate her from her mate will result in consequences they cannot fathom. The old powers are waking, boy, and your Council's reign over this world is drawing to a close."
She released him, and Damon didn't hesitate, he shifted into his wolf form and bolted back down the tunnel toward Silver Ridge territory, leaving only the echo of his escape.
Nyx turned her attention to us, and I felt Kian tense beside me, uncertain whether we were about to face her wrath or her aid.
"The mate bond will serve you both well," Nyx said to Kian, her tone softening slightly. "Complete it when you can. When two Eclipse-touched souls are fully bonded, they become something exponentially more powerful than they are separately. The Council knows this. It is why they sent the boy to divide you."
She looked at me then, and in her violet gaze, I saw something that looked almost like approval. "Your friend still lives. She is held in a compound three miles northeast of the forest sanctuary. The Council's deception was transparent, they wanted you to walk into a trap they'd prepared. But now that I've revealed myself, those plans are dust."
"Thank you," I whispered, still trembling from the raw power that had just manifested before us.
"Don't thank me yet," Nyx said. She gestured, and the tunnel wall beside us simply... opened, revealing a passage that glowed with her violet light. "This way leads directly to where your friend is held. Go. Free her. Your mate will return to the castle and resume command of his forces. The Council will learn today that they cannot win through subterfuge. They will learn it through fire and blood."
"What about you?" Kian asked, his voice steady despite the fear I could feel through our bond.
"I have a Council to attend to," Nyx said, and a smile crossed her ancient face, one that held no mercy at all. "It is time they remembered why my kind was feared before they ever rose to power."
She turned away, and her form seemed to expand, to grow larger and more terrifying with each second. The tunnel behind her began to glow with violet light as she ascended back the way we'd come, toward the castle and the battle raging above.
Kian pulled me toward the passage Nyx had opened for us. "Come on," he said urgently. "We need to move while she has their attention."
But before we left, I turned back for one last glimpse of Nyx, just in time to see her fully emerge from the tunnel into the battle above. The light that followed was blinding; a flash of power so immense that even through the stone and earth separating us, I could feel it reshape the very fabric of reality around the castle.
Whatever was happening above, the Council had just learned that they'd made a grave mistake in trying to separate us.
The passage Nyx had opened led us through ancient tunnels that thrummed with magic older than the castle itself. The violet light illuminated stone walls covered in symbols I couldn't read but somehow understood on an instinctive level; warnings, protections, and promises of power beyond mortal comprehension. Kian kept my hand firmly in his as we moved, his urgency mounting with every step.
"Three miles northeast," he muttered, checking his internal sense of direction. "We can make it in less than five minutes if we run."
We shifted into our wolf forms the moment the tunnel opened onto a forest path. Kian's massive silver wolf seemed to glow with residual power from Nyx's presence, while my Eclipse form shimmered with that familiar silver-black light. We ran, our senses acute and hungry for any sign of where they'd taken Sera.
It was my nose that caught her scent first; fear and blood and the acrid smell of silver chains. We burst through a thicket into a clearing where a compound of dark wooden structures stood hidden beneath a glamour that Nyx's power had apparently shattered. Guards scattered at our arrival, but none of them tried to fight. The presence of an Eclipse Wolf and a Blood Alpha appearing out of nowhere was enough to break their will to resist.
We shifted back into human form at the entrance to the largest building, and Kian didn't bother announcing ourselves; he simply tore through the door.