255. Making dinner

255. Making dinner

Matt

I was chopping carrots.

That’s it. Just carrots.

Normal. Very domestic. Very fine.

Rain leaned against the doorway, watching me like I was a science experiment.

“You’re going after those carrots.”

“Just making dinner.”

“You’re making confetti.”

I glanced down. Okay, yeah. They were more shredded than sliced. Whatever.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Rain’s brows lifted. “You said that like someone who hasn’t been fine since the last full moon.”

I kept chopping. “Everything’s under control.”

“You mean the fire twins are having prophetic nightmares? The sky went purple last night. Or the part where Lia hasn’t slept in two days?”

I stopped. Knife in midair. “Pick one.”

Rain shrugged. “I vote for the sky. That was new. Also, mildly threatening. Like the universe discovered mood lighting and got carried away.”

Silence stretched out. I wanted to say something. Couldn’t.

Rain crossed the kitchen and grabbed a baby carrot from the bowl. “You know… sometimes when everything feels like it’s falling apart, you don’t have to glue it back together alone.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re acting like you are.”

I didn’t look at him. “Someone has to.”

Rain leaned on the counter beside me. “Matt, you’re not a one-man apocalypse team.”

“I don’t want Lia to worry.”

“She already does. We all do. You trying to carry it quietly just makes her think it’s worse.”

I stared at the counter. My hands had started shaking.

“Hey,” Rain said, more gently now. “Come outside. You need air. Or a distraction. I can trip over something for comedic effect. That usually works.”

I huffed a laugh, barely. “Thanks.”

He nudged my arm. “We’re still here. All of us. Even if everything’s weird and messed up and the universe forgot how to play fair.”

“Yeah. Forgot and rolled a nat-1 for weather control.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And I’m not saying it’s Lia’s fault, but the last time she said, ‘how bad could it get,’ the toaster caught fire and started chanting.”

I cracked a grin. “The toaster was unsettling.”

“Right? Appliances aren’t supposed to hum in Latin.”

I nodded. Didn’t say much more. Just set the knife down and follow him out.

Outside, the night was crisp, the stars flickering weakly but still there.

Rain gave me a sideways grin. “See? The sky might be throwing a tantrum, but it hasn’t given up on us yet.”

I cracked a small smile. “Neither have we.”

He bumped my shoulder. “Exactly. So let’s stop pretending we have it all figured out, and start figuring it out together.”

I looked at him, really looked, and for the first time in days, felt like maybe—just maybe—we were going to be okay.

“Together,” I agreed.

He nodded. “Cool. Now promise me something.”

“Depends. Is it legally binding?”

“I mean, if we write it in blood.”

“Hard pass.”

“Okay, verbal then. Just… no more silent vegetable massacres. If you need to stress-chop something, at least move up to onions. At least then your emotional breakdown will look culinary.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. What if I need to chop something angrily tomorrow?”

“I’ll buy you a watermelon and let you pretend it’s bureaucracy.”

“That sounds therapeutic.”

“Right?” Rain smirked. “We can smash it in the backyard. Very symbolic. Very messy. Catharsis, but with fruit.”

I laughed, properly this time. “Therapists everywhere weep.”

“Therapists everywhere take notes. ‘Aggressive melon therapy, noted.’”

We stood there for a moment, listening to the wind shift through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. Then another owl responded. Then a third owl said something that sounded suspiciously like it was laughing.

Rain narrowed his eyes toward the woods. “Okay. Those better be actual owls this time.”

Everything was fine.

I wished I could pretend everything was fine.

Or accept the fact that nothing was wrong for the time being.

The strange rift hadn’t appeared again, though I was convinced this was Solen trying to get them to come to him. Why? Well, no one had managed to figure that out yet. That was the question hanging over all of us like a blade: why the twins?

Lia had been working so hard to find more about Solen, but his name was so old, so ancient, that it slipped through the cracks of every archive and database we had. It was like chasing smoke with your bare hands. Every time she thought she had a lead, it would vanish. A book is missing from the library. A scroll that had rotted away. A witness who conveniently went silent.

It was maddening.

How could a creature be so old that no one knew its name? I wondered if Solen had done that on purpose. Had he somehow managed to have his name erased from history so that, in case of a moment like this, no one would be able to prepare?

“Maybe he didn’t want to be remembered,” Jesse had said once, during one of our late-night planning sessions. “Or maybe he wanted to make sure no one could ever stop him again.”

That scared me more than I wanted to admit.

Because if no one had remembered him, if no one could, what chance did we have of stopping whatever was coming?

It was truly a scary thought. I knew the only thing we could do was look into every old book we found. If by some chance we could find a brief mention of Solen, then I would be willing to take it. Even a half-faded reference, a scratched-out footnote, a forgotten margin scribble—anything. We needed to find something.

But there wasn’t anything, as frustrating as that was.

Lia had even started checking dream journals from the coven elders. Still nothing. Every path turned to dust. Every clue ended on a wall. It was like the universe itself had conspired to forget him.

Solen must be laughing wherever the fuck he was. He probably thought he had pulled the wool over our eyes and that when he finally reached out to take our twins, he would be able to do it cleanly. Quietly. Like a shadow swallowing the sun.

Well, he was wrong.

Because even if we couldn’t find his name in a book, we had something else—each other. My mates. Lia. The pack. The coven. The twins, even. We were building something stronger than history. Stronger than fear. Solen could stay in the dark, but we weren’t going to just stand there waiting.

We were going to fight.

Easier said than done, but I was convinced that we would be able to do it.

I looked around at the pack, sighing ot myself.

Yeah, we had to fucking fight and you know what? Fuck Solen. Solen was terrible and a monster who was going to destroy us all if we didn’t do it.

Lia

I never expect that everything is going ot be normal because anytime I expect something like this, things get strange. The strange thing happened one day when I was outside just getting some fresh air.

Suddenly, without warning, another portal appeared in the distance. I tensed, making sure the twins weren’t wandering towards it. They weren’t, but something, or rather someone, did crawl out of the portal. It was a young girl, perhaps barely the age of ten or eleven, but when she got close enough, I got into her eyes.

Her eyes were filled with wisdom. She looked like she was over a couple of centuries old. It was the same look the elder dragons had in their eyes when I gazed upon them.

I tensed, ready to call for my mates.

The girl gave me a sad smile, the kind that made it feel like she’d seen too much. Like time had weighed her down, pressing every year into her bones.

“I know their names because I hear them whispered through the cracks,” she said softly. “The Sunless Realm doesn’t forget what the world above tries to. Names carry power there. And Solen… he clings to power in any form he can get.”

Her eyes met mine, and for the first time, I noticed the faint shimmer of light around her. Like moonlight on water, just barely there. “Your twins are connected to him through blood and fate. The same way your line banished him, their existence is the key to keeping him sealed—or letting him out.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Why now? Why them?”

“Because the world is weaker than it was,” she replied. “The barriers have thinned. Magic has been stretched and misused. Solen waited until your world was too distracted, too fractured to notice him creeping in through the cracks.”

Her answers were so cryptic, adding ot my frustration. I didn’t know what to do.

I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt tight. “What does he want with them?”

“I cannot not say. All I can say to you is that he wants them for nothing good. He will stop at nothing to use them to get himself free. Solen has been trying to get free for a long time, and nothing will stop them. I want you to understand that.”

This girl was frustrating me, but I also had to be grateful to her that she came all this way. She looked like she had been through a lot. The girl looked sad.

I stepped back. “You said they’ll make the right choice—how can you be sure?”

The girl tilted her head, eyes glowing faintly now. “Because I’ve seen the possible futures. Not all of them end well, but the ones that do… they start with you standing in front of him and saying no.”

It made even less sense than before. My head hurt.

She eventually did vanish without warning, heading back into the portal. I blinked, staring ahead.

What the fuck had that been?

I shook my head, turning and heading back inside. It was important to talk to the pack about this strange girl. She didn’t seem like she wanted to harm the twins and only wanted to help. Maybe she was trapped in this sunless realm, and the only way to be free once and for all was to stop Solen.

Whatever it was, we were going to find out sooner or later.