CHAPTER 57: The Girl in the Thorns
Ella’s POV
The world dissolved. I felt myself falling, not through air, but through memory, as if slipping between pieces of someone else’s shattered mind.
Then, my knees hit the ground. Cold.
The kind of cold that seeped straight into bone.
I gasped, lungs burning as I staggered to my feet. Fog coiled tightly around my legs, creeping higher like it wanted to swallow me whole.
This wasn’t a forest, It wasn’t a cave.
It wasn’t reality. This was Lyra’s mind; dark, twisted, and bleeding.
“Astrid?” I whispered. But I heard nothing
“Alex?”
Silence. Too quiet. Too empty.
My pulse hammered. I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, though nothing here felt like it belonged to the physical world.
The landscape stretched endlessly:Dead trees with charred bark. Stone pillars cracked down the center like broken bones. A sky flickering between dusk and midnight, never settling.
And everywhere there were Thorns.
Black, spiraling thorns that crawled across the ground in tangled roots, shifting slightly like something alive.
I took a shaky breath and pushed forward.
Lyra’s presence pulled at me like a heartbeat inside my chest, faint but desperate. I followed it.
As I walked, the fog curled around my ankles with more resistance, like it was trying to pull me back.
“No,” I whispered, shoving forward. “Not this time.”
A figure flickered at the corner of my eye.
I spun, there was nothing. But when I turned back, the fog had changed color darker, thicker like ink spreading through water. The world exhaled.
“You shouldn’t be here…”
The whisper slithered past my ear.
I froze. “Lyra?” I called. But there was no answer.
Just the whisper of thorns scraping against themselves.
I forced myself forward.In the distance, through the shifting fog, I finally saw it: A massive tree.
Its bark glowed dimly with blood-red light, like embers smoldering in dying fire.
Around it, the thorns thickened into a cage woven too tightly for anything human to escape.
My breath caught. “Lyra…” I whispered.
Her presence throbbed inside my chest, stronger now.
My feet carried me toward the tree in a half-run, half-stumble. Every step felt harder, heavier and Wrong. As I got closer, I saw her, trapped inside.
Lyra hung suspended in the center of the tree, her arms bound by chains made of light and shadow twisted together. Her hair; once perfect draped in tangled waves over her shoulders. Her skin was pale, threaded with veins of glowing red like cracks in porcelain.
Her eyes were closed at first. Then, they snapped open; Bright pink, glowing through tears.
“Ella?” Her voice was soft, disbelieving, hoarse with pain. “You… you came?”
My heart shattered with relief and guilt all at once.
“I’m here,” I breathed, stepping toward the tree.
The thorns hissed, snapping upward like warning serpents.
I froze. Lyra panicked instantly.
“No!” she cried. “Don’t touch them. They bite. They learn your scent.”
A shiver slithered across my spine.
“Lyra…” I whispered, eyes burning. “What did he do to you?”
She gave a broken laugh. It wasn’t her usual mocking laugh. This one sounded tired and Defeated.
“Same thing I’ve always done to myself,” she said. “I opened a door expecting power, and got chains instead.”
Her breath hitched, and for a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, as if in unbearable pain.
"You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered again. “He’s watching.”
“I don’t care,” I said. My voice shook, but my feet didn’t move back. “I’m getting you out.”
“Ella, you don’t understand,” Lyra insisted, voice rising with fear. “He’s everywhere here. This is his realm. His rules.”
“And your mind,” I reminded her gently.
Lyra stared at me. At first in disbelief.
Then a fragile, painful kind of hope softened her expression.
“You… you really came for me?”
I nodded. “You’re not alone this time.”
Lyra’s chin trembled before she snapped her gaze away, ashamed.
“You should hate me,” she whispered. “After what I did. After the danger I put you in.”
“I was angry,” I admitted. “I still am.”
Her shoulders sagged.
“But I won’t abandon you,” I said quietly. “Not here.”
Lyra’s lips quivered. She looked… scared. Truly scared. For the first time since I had known her.
“I sent you to die,” she whispered. “I used you. I was cruel. I…”
“You were drowning,” I said gently. “And you tried to pull someone else in with you.”
Her breath broke. “I didn’t know how to ask for help,” she whispered. “I don’t think I ever learned.”
The chains tightened suddenly with a sharp hiss, scorching her skin. She screamed.
“Lyra!” I surged forward but the thorns shot up, aiming for my throat. I stumbled back.
Lyra gasped through the pain. “Go. Please, Ella…just go. Save yourself. Don’t let him find you.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said.
“You have to!” she sobbed. “He’ll destroy you!”
“Then we face him together.”
Lyra stared at me like she had never seen me before.
Like she couldn’t understand why someone so weak, an omega, would stand beside her.
“Ella…” Her voice was a broken whisper. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re still human,” I whispered. “And because you’re still alive.”
Something in Lyra shattered at those words. Something long-hidden and fragile.
A sound split the air like a giant bone cracking. Lyra’s head snapped up.
“No,” she breathed, trembling violently. “No…no, he’s awake.”
The fog turned black, The ground trembled.
“Ella,” Lyra whispered, eyes wide with terrified clarity. “He’s coming.”
Thorns recoiled like whipped animals.
The sky collapsed into night.
And a silhouette walked out of the darkness.
A tall, shadowy figure. A crown of jagged bone floating above its head. Red light bleeding from its shape.
The king. Lyra screamed.
I stood my ground even though my legs shook uncontrollably. The king’s voice rolled like thunder across the dead world.
“Little wolf.”
My blood turned to ice.
“You should not be here,” he murmured. “But fate has always been fond of disobedient hearts.”
“I’m taking her back,” I said, voice trembling but steady.
The king tilted his head, amused.
“You do not take from me,” he said softly. “I am the end of all things taken.”
“And she’s not yours.”
“She will be,” he corrected. “She chose me when she chose the mark.”
“No,” I whispered. “She chose survival.”
The king paused.
For a moment, real curiosity flickered through him.
“Mortals rarely understand their own chains,” he said.
Lyra pulled against her bonds, sobbing. “Ella, RUN!”
The king raised his hand. The chains shattered and The tree cracked open.
Lyra fell; Her body limp, weightless, collapsing straight into my arms.
She clung to my shirt weakly, burying her face into my chest.
“Ella…” she whispered. “Don’t let him take me again.”
“I won’t,” I promised fiercely.
The king watched us with ancient calm.
“Very well,” he said finally. “If she chooses you… then her fate binds to yours.”
The wind howled. His voice turned darker.
“Remember, little wolf. Every chain you break…you take onto yourself.”
The world splintered under my feet.
Lyra screamed, The sky tore open. And darkness swallowed everything.