Chapter 131: An Ancestral Secret
The wind keened low over the valley, mourning what had stirred.
Marcus stood at the edge of the Veil’s rupture, his aged hands clenched into fists. His eyes, steel-gray like his brother’s and nephew’s, did not blink as Isla collapsed into Damian’s arms, breathless and blazing with new knowledge. He had known this moment would come. The bloodlines were converging. The Veil was thinning. The Umbrazin… whispering again.
But not all whispers were meant to be heard.
“Is she marked?” Marcus asked, his voice gravel.
Damian turned, eyes narrowing. “Marked by what?”
Marcus stepped forward, shadows deepening around him. His cloak rippled though the wind had stilled. “By them.”
“Uncle, what are you saying?” Damian asked. “You were there for me when our pack was crippled because of the continuous confrontations… you said to me that you would always be there by my side…”
“I lied.”
The air stilled.
Lucia’s hand went to her dagger. Rohen took a step closer, bristling. Even Leo stood straighter.
Damian’s voice was low. “Explain. Now.”
Marcus met his nephew’s gaze. “Cassian didn’t fall without there being a precedent to it. He chose the dark willingly. I must admit, a long time ago, I did too.”
Shock swept over the group like a wildfire.
“You what?” Isla whispered.
“I was one of the last true Alpha born with Umbrazin blood, before the lines fractured, throughout many generations of the Wolff bloodline we were sworn to secrecy, but when Cassian, Alaine and you were born, we decided it was best to dig our secret deep down.” Marcus said. “We were told again and again by our ancestors what the Veyra did and they sealed our kin, crushed our temples, erased our names. They feared the awakening and they were right to.”
Damian’s voice cracked. “So my parents and you raised me… lied to me… all these years?”
“We tried to protect you from what Cassian became,” Marcus said, voice strained. “But it wasn’t out of guilt. It was strategy. You were always stronger than him. That’s what terrified me. Your father was stronger than me. He managed to fully evade the pull but I didn’t.”
Rohen surged forward, blade half-drawn. “You’re saying you served Cassian this entire time?”
“No.” Marcus turned to him with a gaze like ice. “I served the Umbrazin and I serve them still. However, I came back to the light and wasn’t corrupt after the choice I made.”
A sudden pulse rang out, low and resonant, from the Veil behind them.
It wasn’t magic.
It was mourning.
Lucia’s eyes widened. “They’re waking.”
A sound followed, hundreds of whispering voices, layered like wind through dry grass. The souls, the remnants of the Umbrazin who had been trapped between life and death, power and memory, for generations.
Brienne clutched Damian’s arm. “They’re speaking again.”
Marcus dropped to one knee, fist to the ground.
“I ask the Remnants to bear witness,” he intoned. “Let those still bound in shadow rise.”
Isla backed away, clutching her belly. The pendant burned in her palm.
“Damian,” she whispered, “something’s wrong. The souls… they’re not just awakening. They’re angry.”
One by one, shapes began to rise from the mist. Not corpses, not ghosts but rather something worse, echoes of those who had once wielded Umbrazin power, walking memories laced with fury and grief.
They all bowed to Marcus.
“No,” Damian said. “No, this isn’t you.”
Marcus rose. “It is. It always was. But I never intended for you to suffer, Damian. Not truly. I only needed time.”
“To do what?” Damian shouted. “To prepare me to be your pawn?”
“To prepare you to lead them,” Marcus said quietly.
“Lead who?” Isla said. “The dead?”
“No,” Marcus said. “The broken.”
One of the souls stepped forward, its face smooth and eyeless, but radiating old strength.
“You have a daughter,” it whispered to Isla. “She will be the gate, the vessel and the destroyer.”
“No,” Damian said, stepping in front of Isla.
“Yes,” Marcus murmured. “That’s why Cassian fears her. That’s why I must stand against him. He wishes to use her. I… would shield her from him.”
Lucia snarled. “So you raise an army of the damned to ‘protect’ her? How noble.”
Marcus’s eyes darkened. “You do not understand the old ways. The Veyra stole the balance. The Sombrósi ripped the Veil. But the Umbrazin? We were meant to guide the crossing between realms, not to be buried in it.”
Alaine moved to Isla’s side, her face pale. “I don’t trust him.”
Brienne stepped forward. “Neither do I.”
But Isla’s voice was quiet, trembling with knowledge she had seen in the Veil.
“She spoke to me. My daughter. She said the gods were liars.”
Marcus’s gaze met hers. “They are and I will help you shatter their chains. I swear it on the bones of our kin.”
Damian shook his head, stricken. “Then prove it.”
Marcus blinked.
“Help us stop Cassian now,” Damian continued. “Stand with me, not your memories.”
The moment stretched. The mist churned. The souls murmured becoming even more restless.
Marcus nodded once. “Then come, to the Broken Gate. That is where he gathers his power. That is where this ends.”
A single, withered soul whispered something in an ancient tongue and Marcus translated:
“The child will awaken one of the three Thrones. If she chooses the wrong one, the world will bleed.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“We’ll make sure she chooses right.”