CHAPTER 50: The Seer’s Warning
CHAPTER 50: The Seer’s Warning
Ella’s POV
The ground shuddered again, harder this time sending dust falling from the cracked wall behind us.
Alex grabbed my wrist and yanked me back from the cliff’s edge just as a chunk of rock broke loose and tumbled into the darkness below.
“What’s happening?” I gasped.
Lyra didn’t answer.
She stood frozen, staring down at the Seer like her entire world had suddenly tilted. Her breath came fast and shallow, her eyes wide with something I had never seen in her before.
Fear.
Alex tightened his grip on his sword. “Lyra. Talk.”
“She wasn’t supposed to find me,” Lyra whispered. “She wasn’t supposed to…”
“Lyra,” Alex growled.
Her gaze snapped toward him, glassy and frantic. “She’s not just any Seer, Alex. She’s one of the Bound Ones. If she’s here, it means…”
A crack split through the air like lightning.
The cliff jerked beneath our feet.
Alex grabbed my shoulders and pulled me close against his chest. Lyra stumbled backward, catching herself on the stone wall.
The Seer, still standing far below, lifted her hand slowly, deliberately and the forest seemed to hush at the gesture.
Leaves stilled, Wind died.
Even the trembling earth quieted, like it was bowing to her will.
Her silver eyes glowed brighter as she spoke again.
“Run. Now. Before he arrives.”
Alex’s voice dropped into a low growl. “Who? Darius?”
The Seer tilted her head.
“No,” she said softly. “The one he answers to.”
Lyra flinched, pressing herself against the cliff wall. “She knows. She knows about—”
The Seer raised a second hand.
Lyra’s voice died in her throat instantly, as if someone had reached into her lungs and squeezed.
Alex stepped forward. “Don’t touch her!”
The Seer’s smile widened.
“I am not touching her, Wolfborn. I am reminding her of the oath she broke.”
Lyra’s knees buckled.
She gasped, hand clutching her throat.
“Stop!” I cried, unable to move from Alex’s grip. “Please stop hurting her!”
The Seer’s gaze slid to me.
And everything inside me went cold.
Those silver eyes seemed to look through me, past my bones, past my memories, past even the girl I pretended to be.
“You,” she murmured. “You are the crack in fate.”
Alex moved in front of me instantly, a shield of muscle and fury. “Stay away from her.”
The Seer only smiled, not mocking, not cruel.
“I could not harm her even if I wished. The threads protect her now.”
Ella. Me.
Protected… by what?
I didn’t get to ask.
Because suddenly the wind roared back with a vengeance, whipping sand and broken leaves into the air. The trees below bent and swayed.
Alex grabbed my hand. “Inside! Now!”
Lyra tried to stand, still choking on air that refused to reach her lungs. Alex reached for her, but the Seer spoke sharply:
“Do not touch her.”
He froze.
“Why?” he hissed.
Lyra’s eyes streamed with tears, not from pain but from pure terror.
The Seer’s voice dropped lower, echoing strangely in the wind.
“She carries a mark. One that binds her blood to another’s command. Touching her during activation could bind you as well.”
Alex swore under his breath and backed away.
“What activation?!” I cried.
The Seer lifted her hand toward Lyra again, palm out.
Lyra screamed.
A symbol; bright red, like molten iron flashed on her collarbone beneath her clothes. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
The Seer’s voice cut through the chaos.
“She is marked for death.”
I stumbled backward. “What?”
Lyra dropped to her knees, gasping, the glowing mark burning against her skin.
Alex’s voice cracked with shock and fury. “Who marked her?”
The Seer turned her face toward him. Moonlight fell across her pale features.
“The same man who murdered your parents.”
Alex went still.
Completely still.
His breathing halted.
His pulse froze beneath my hand.
The Seer’s eyes didn’t waver.
“The one Darius serves.”
She paused.
“The one who wants the girl dead for taking Lyra’s place.”
Me.
She meant… me.
Lyra’s strangled voice pushed through the pain.
“Don’t say his name—”
The Seer cut her off sharply.
“He has already found you.”
A howl tore through the forest.
Deep, Powerful and Close.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “That’s…”
“Not Darius,” Alex finished.
The Seer gestured upward with both hands, and the cliff groaned beneath us again.
“You must leave this place,” she commanded. “Or none of you will survive the next moon.”
Alex stepped forward. “Tell me his name!”
The Seer’s silver eyes locked onto his.
“No,” she whispered. “Because once you hear it… you will never outrun him.”
Lyra screamed again as the mark on her skin flashed violently.
The ground split.
Alex grabbed me before I fell, pulling me back toward the outpost entrance.
“Move, Ella!” he shouted. “Move!”
Lyra struggled to stand, body trembling, tears streaking down her ash-blown face.
The Seer’s voice rose sharply.
“Go! Now!”
The cliff cracked wide. Rocks tumbled into the abyss.
Alex dragged me inside the outpost. Lyra staggered after us, clutching the wall for support.
Behind us, the Seer’s final whisper rode the wind:
“You cannot escape your fate… but you can choose how you meet it.”
The door slammed shut.
The cliff gave way outside.
And the world dropped into chaos.