Chapter 163 Hundred and sixty six
Chapter 163 Hundred and sixty six
“Ryder, don’t do this to me.” The words slipped out before she even opened her eyes, her voice thick, breathless, as if she’d been running in her sleep. She sat upright instantly, heart hammering so violently she pressed a hand to her chest to steady it. The stone around her glowed silver, too silver. Too bright. The light spilled across the floor like blood pouring from an unseen wound, pulsing with a rhythm she didn’t recognize. Not the moon’s. Not hers. Something older. Something warning her.
She swung her legs over the edge of the slab and stood quickly, almost stumbling, her pulse stuttering as she looked around. “Ryder?” It was instinct to call for him first. The ruins answered with their usual silence, the air cold and unmoved, as if the world itself refused to acknowledge her desperation. “Ryder, if you can hear me, answer,” she pushed again, louder, breath trembling.
But the silence didn’t hold.
A whisper threaded through it.
Not outside.
Not around her.
Inside her.
“Sienna…”
Her blood iced. She closed her eyes tightly, breath shattering. “Ryder?” It wasn’t possible. It felt like his voice, carried through warmth and shadow, the exact tone he used when he tried not to let fear bleed into his words. She spun toward the broken archway, her heart catching as she searched the night outside, trees shaking, faint wind curling through the columns, moonlight cutting long silver stripes across the ground.
But Ryder wasn’t standing there.
His voice wasn’t coming from anywhere she could reach.
It came again, softer. “Sienna… listen.”
Her breath hitched and she pressed a hand over her mouth to keep a sob from ripping free. She walked toward the center of the hall, every step sharp with dread, her pulse thundering louder than her footsteps. “Where are you? What have they done? Ryder, tell me where, ”
The air snapped.
Moonlight shot upward in a sudden violent burst, exploding into thin arcs of silver that curled around her ankles first, then climbed higher, twisting up her body like vines of light. She gasped and grabbed at them, but her fingers passed through the glow as if it were smoke made of memory.
“Sienna… don’t try to reach me.” His voice faltered, breaking on the last word. “Please.”
Her knees nearly buckled. “Don’t say that. Tell me where you are. Tell me how to get to you. Tell me what to do.” She turned in circles, searching the ruins, searching the shadows, searching for anything that even remotely resembled him. “I’ll come to the shadow realm if I have to. I’ll tear it apart. Tell me, ”
“You can’t follow me,” he whispered, pained. “You’ll die if you try.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, hot enough to sting. “Then let me die,” she snapped, voice cracking with fury she didn’t have the strength to hide. “If you think I’m letting you fade alone, then you don’t know me at all.”
The moonlight surged, brightening until she winced. A pulse shot through the floor, lifting dust into the air. She staggered backward as the glow intensified, forming a circle at her feet like a ritual she hadn’t cast, a warning she couldn’t ignore. “Ryder, tell me where you are,” she begged. “Tell me before, ”
A sound cut her off.
A heartbeat.
Not hers.
Not human.
Deep. Slow. Heavy.
As if the world itself was breathing beneath her.
She looked down sharply as cracks formed along the stone, glowing silver. Light seeped upward, crawling over her skin, wrapping around her arms, sliding up her throat like cold water. She tried to step back but the light pulled her forward, holding her there.
“Sienna… stop,” Ryder’s voice broke, strained, desperate. “Don’t fight it. Don’t make this harder. Don’t, ”
“Ryder, I’m coming for you,” she said through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to tell me no. Not anymore. Not after everything. I will find you. I will pull you back from whatever hell they dragged you into.”
“You can’t,” he whispered. “The moon… the last moon… when it rises, ”
The air froze.
His voice cracked.
Then stopped.
“Ryder?” She shook her head violently. “Ryder, finish that sentence, don’t you dare disappear on me again.”
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then the ruins shook.
Hard.
The wind slammed through the hall, knocking loose fragments of stone. Vines crawled across the ceiling as if pulled by invisible hands. Moonlight twisted violently around her legs, spiraling upward into a vortex that swallowed the air. The sound of cracking stone thundered under her feet.
And then,
His voice returned.
Barely a breath.
Barely a thread.
“Sienna… find me… before the last moon rises.”
Her heart broke under the weight of it.
She opened her mouth to respond but the light collapsed inward, swirling into a single blinding flare that hit her chest so hard she stumbled backward into the wall. She pressed her palm over her heart as if she could physically hold the message inside her.
“Ryder!” she screamed.
But he was gone.
The ruins fell silent.
The moonlight dimmed.
And on the floor before her, etched into stone by a strike of divine power, was a single line, glowing faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat:
LAST MOON: BEGINNING
Her breath left her in a sob she couldn’t contain.
He wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t alive either.
He was somewhere between.
And she had just been given a countdown.
The moment the moon reached its final rise, she would lose him forever.
She pressed her forehead to the cold stone, gripping it so tightly her knuckles went pale. Her voice trembled when she whispered into the silence, fierce and trembling but unbroken.
“I’m coming,” she vowed. “I don’t care what realm you’re in or what goddess thinks she can keep you. I will find you.”
A faint tremor ran through the ruins, an answer or a warning, she didn’t know.
But she stood, slowly, painfully, wiping tears with the back of her shaking hand.
The last moon was rising.
And she would rip open the world to reach him before it fell.