Chapter 69: Threads of the Past, Chains of the Future
The vision wouldn’t leave her.
Even as Isla moved through the towering halls of the fortress, steel glinting at her hip, her every step purposeful and sharp, she felt it pressing in. Lurking in the quiet moments, clawing at the corners of her mind.
That other life.
That other her.
The golden-eyed woman. The battlefield drowned in crimson light. The man who wasn’t Damian, whose voice echoed like smoke and thunder in her soul. It wasn’t just a dream. It wasn’t just a memory. It was something older, more haunting. It pulsed through her blood like a forgotten prophecy, like a tether pulling her backward and forward.
It was a warning.
And it was getting stronger.
Even when she trained, her body a whirlwind of fluid movement, sweat slicking her spine, fists cracking against the wooden post, she could feel it. Flickers of another self moving through her, each strike laced with fury that didn’t quite belong to her. Yet it did.
That night, Isla lay awake in the dark, Damian’s arm draped possessively over her waist. His breath was steady against her neck, his warmth grounding her in the present. He was her anchor, solid, fierce, irrefutably hers and yet… her mind drifted.
Something was shifting.
She could feel it in the way the air tasted different. In the way the night seemed to lean in, as if listening for secrets. Her fingers curled over Damian’s forearm, gripping tightly. She wouldn’t lose this. She wouldn’t lose him. She didn’t care what the past whispered or what her bloodline threatened to awaken.
She would not be taken.
The next morning, the fragile stillness shattered.
Magnus stormed into the war room, his face grim, eyes blazing with urgency.
“We have a problem.”
Damian looked up sharply from the map he’d been poring over. “What is it?”
Without a word, Magnus threw down a bloodstained scrap of cloth. The fabric landed with a muted slap against the table, the crimson stain stark against the pale fibers. A jagged tear ran through its center, but it was the symbol seared into the cloth that turned Isla’s blood to ice.
A wolf, with its eyes painted gold.
Alaine exhaled slowly, her voice hushed. “That’s an old crest.”
Leo’s expression darkened. “Not just any crest. That’s from the First Bloodline.”
Silence descended like a blade.
Isla’s heart slammed against her ribs. Her gaze locked onto the sigil, familiar and foreign all at once. The golden eyes burned into her.
“What does that mean?” she asked, her voice quiet but taut with dread.
Damian’s expression hardened. “It means Vincent isn’t just gathering rogues anymore. He’s looking for something far greater.”
Cassian stepped forward, jaw clenched. “Or someone greater.”
All eyes turned toward her.
Her skin prickled. Her pulse thundered in her ears. They all knew. Even if no one said it aloud, it hung in the air like smoke, undeniable and suffocating.
Vincent wasn’t just toying with the pack.
He was calling to her and the past was answering.
That night, the fortress couldn't hold her.
Isla found herself in the training yard, her knuckles raw as she slammed them again and again into the wooden post. The repetitive impact dulled her thoughts, but it couldn’t quiet the storm.
She was unraveling.
Every part of her felt too tight, too alive. Like her body was trying to contain something vast and ancient, something clawing at her insides. Every memory of the vision echoed louder. Golden eyes. A dying battlefield. The haunting pull of a name she couldn’t remember but felt.
Behind her, footsteps approached, quiet and cautious.
“I’m not in the mood to be told to rest,” Isla muttered, sweat dripping down her spine, breath heaving.
Brienne’s soft laugh met her ears. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Isla paused, resting her bruised hands on her knees. She turned, meeting her friend’s gaze.
“Did you know?” she asked, voice tight.
Brienne blinked. “Know what?”
“That I…” Isla hesitated. “That I might not be who I thought I was?”
Brienne was quiet for a moment, her eyes flickering with something Isla couldn’t place. Then she shrugged lightly, but the smile she gave didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I think we’re all figuring that out. Some truths just take longer to rise to the surface.”
Isla stared at her. “And you? Do you know who you are?”
Something flickered, pain and perhaps, before Brienne’s face smoothed into a smirk. “Not yet. But I’m getting closer.”
By the next afternoon, the scouts returned.
They brought with them dread and answers no one wanted. Vincent had moved north. Toward the ruins of an ancient stronghold. The kind spoken of only in fragments and warnings. The birthplace of the first wolves. The golden-eyed ones. The bloodline is tied to legend, power and prophecy. The very same ones Isla had seen in her vision, dying, bleeding and burning.
A shiver slid down her spine like a lover’s breath, sharp and cold.
Damian’s hand grazed hers as they stood side by side, facing the map now marked with red ink. He didn’t say anything, but his fingers twined with hers, holding tight.
Isla’s gaze stayed fixed on the north.
If they didn’t stop Vincent now, it wouldn’t be a battle for land or survival.
It would be a war for blood, for legacy, for truth and somewhere deep inside her, beneath the confusion, the fear, and the ache, something whispered.
A name.
A throne.
A fate.
She shivered at the terrifying possibility that she wasn’t meant to run from the past. She was meant to awaken it.