Chapter 153 Hundred and fifty six

Chapter 153 Hundred and fifty six

“Where did he go?” Sienna’s voice cracked through the cold night as she stepped over the broken edge of a trampled sigil, her breath fogging in the air like a warning the forest refused to listen to.

The scout beside her swallowed hard, his boots crunching over shattered stone. “My Queen… he was here. Not long ago. The tracks are fresh.”

“Show me,” she said, moving ahead before he could finish.

The patrol had stumbled on the scene less than an hour earlier. A border outpost reduced to silence. No screams. No smoke. No battle scars except for the bodies, three assassins Renna had hired and a fourth bearing Zane’s sigil scorched into his armor. All of them dead in ways no ordinary wolf could have managed.

Sienna crouched beside the nearest body, wiping snow away from a sword sliced so cleanly it looked like light had cut through it rather than steel.

“He didn’t hesitate,” she murmured.

“Who?” the scout asked.

She slid him a sharp glance. “You know who.”

Her fingers brushed the snow again, tracing a set of heavy boot prints, larger than most men, familiar in the weight and stride. Ryder had always walked like someone torn between silence and violence, always one slip away from surrendering to a war he never asked for. The prints told the same story.

She stood with a quiet inhale. “He’s headed deeper into the pines.”

One of her generals stepped forward. “My Queen, if the Ghost Alpha is guarding your borders, we should reach out, ”

“No.” Sienna’s voice cut sharply through the air. “If he wanted contact, he’d allow it. He’s avoiding me. There’s a reason.”

“Because he’s dangerous,” another muttered.

“Because he thinks he is,” she corrected, jaw tight.

She walked ahead of her guards, ignoring their murmurs. Her cloak brushed against low branches, dusted with frost that glittered like broken glass. The moon above flickered, another sign her powers were growing unstable. Every pulse of silver in the sky whispered danger. Every shift of shadow warned her something was coming.

She saw it then, a trail of shattered arrows leading into the deeper woods.

She knelt again. “Burned,” she whispered, touching the blackened shaft.

“Witchfire,” the scout whispered with dread.

“No,” Sienna said. “Ryder.”

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Ryder’s curse was changing fast, shaping itself around the divine punishment he’d been carrying alone. She rose and followed the trail, her guards struggling to keep pace with her sudden speed.

“Your Majesty, slow down!”

“You slow down,” she snapped, pushing through branches that clawed at her clothes.

The deeper she went, the clearer the signs became. A tree trunk melted by raw heat. Snow turned to steam in patches around footprints that grew heavier, like he’d been fighting something inside himself while trying to escape the woods’ choking hold.

Behind her, the general muttered, “No man moves like that. Not without magic. Not without, ”

“He is not a monster,” she said sharply.

No one dared argue.

She pressed forward until she reached a clearing where moonlight spilled in pale, trembling beams. In the center lay a symbol burned into the earth, deep, wild, violent. Ryder’s energy still hummed inside it, like a feral heartbeat trapped in the ground.

“Why would he stop here?” the scout whispered.

Sienna moved closer, her breath catching as she recognized the shape, not a sigil of power, not a warning.

A circle.

Their circle.

She stepped into it, swallowing a trembling breath. “He was thinking of me.” Her voice softened, breaking in places she had no strength to hide. “He was fighting the curse. Fighting the visions.”

She felt eyes watching her, not wolves, not soldiers. Something older. Something divine.

“Your Majesty,” the general whispered. “We’re not alone.”

The wind shifted.

Leaves rustled.

Branches bowed toward the snow.

Sienna didn’t turn. Her pulse raced in her throat. She knew that presence. She knew that scent. That silent gravity. That ache that wrapped around her ribs like hands remembering how to hold her.

“Ryder,” she whispered.

No answer.

The guards raised their weapons.

“Lower them,” she ordered.

“But, my Queen, ”

“Now.”

They obeyed reluctantly. The wind thickened, twisting through the branches. A shape moved just at the edge of the clearing, masked, cloaked in shadow, barely visible between the pines. Not a man. Not a wolf. A ghost with breath.

She didn’t turn fully. If she did, she knew she would break rules she had carved into her bones. Instead she breathed, “I know you’re there.”

Silence stretched, tense, painful, trembling.

Finally a voice broke it.

“Sienna.”

Her knees almost buckled. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Why are you hiding?”

“You know why.”

“I don’t care about the curse.”

“You should,” he said, his voice raw, cracking as though scraped from stone. “It’s killing me. It’s trying to kill you.”

“Let me see you,” she whispered.

“I can’t.”

“Ryder, ”

“Sienna, don’t turn around.”

Her breath hitched.

The guards stiffened but stayed still, trained by fear and loyalty.

She spoke softly, but the air carried every word. “You saved my soldiers. You protected the borders all night. You killed the assassins Zane sent.”

“And I’ll keep doing it,” Ryder said. “But I can’t come near you.”

“Because of the curse?” she whispered.

“No. Because of what I saw.”

Her heart hammered. “What did you see?”

He exhaled slowly, as if the words cut free something he wasn’t ready to bleed out. “Lunaris showed me what happens if I touch you.”

“And what happens?” she asked.

“You die.”

The forest went still.

Sienna’s breath trembled. “Visions lie.”

“This one doesn’t.”

She stepped toward the edge of the clearing.

Snow crunched.

Ryder’s voice sharpened. “Stop.”

“You’re not a danger to me.”

“I am.” His breath broke. “I’m the only thing in this world that can kill you without meaning to.”

Her voice lowered, cracked open by emotion she couldn’t disguise. “And still I’m standing here.”

He was silent again, the kind of silence that tasted like longing.

She whispered, “Ryder… you’re fading. I can feel it.”

“I know.”

“And you’re going to leave me again.”

“I don’t want to,” he said.

“Then don’t.”

“It’s not my choice anymore.”

She turned slightly, not enough to see him fully, but enough to catch a shape, a shadow, a hunger and heartbreak fused into one cursed outline.

“You always had a choice,” she said.

“Not this time.”

“You think distance will save me?”

“It’s the only chance you have.”

She shook her head slowly. “You’re wrong.”

“I can’t risk you.”

“You already are,” she said softly. “By disappearing. By hiding. By pretending you don’t matter.”

She sensed his pain like a second pulse.

He whispered, “Sienna… I’m dying.”

“You’re not. We can break this.”

“Not without losing one of us.”

“That’s a lie.”

He didn’t answer.

She closed the distance by one more step. “If you walk away now, the curse wins.”

“If I come closer,” he said, “you die.”

Her breath trembled. “Then we’re both doomed.”

His shadow moved back, barely perceptible.

Her chest tightened painfully. “Ryder, don’t go.”

For the first time, he hesitated. Truly hesitated. As if her voice reached the part of him that remembered warmth, not war.

“I can’t stay,” he whispered.

“Then let me come with you.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because if you follow me…” His voice broke like something inside him finally snapped. “You won’t survive what’s coming.”

“And you will?”

He didn’t answer.

He was already fading again, the wind swallowing his presence.

“Ryder,” she said, her voice cracking.

He paused.

Just paused.

She took a shaking breath. “If you disappear again, I will find you. I don’t care where you go.”

“You won’t,” he whispered. “Lunaris won’t let you.”

He vanished.

Sienna’s knees gave out, but she forced herself upright before the guards saw her fall. Her voice was steady when she said, “We return to the Citadel.”

“But my Queen, ”

“He’s not gone,” she whispered. “He’s leaving a trail even he doesn’t see.”

As she stepped out of the clearing, the moon flickered.

A voice brushed her ear, colder than winter.

Find him before the last moon rises.

She stiffened.

It wasn’t Ryder’s voice.

It was Lunaris.

And when she looked back at the clearing, Ryder’s footprints were already filling with frost, as if the world itself was erasing the path to him.

She knew then this was only the start.