Chapter 52: CHAPTER 52

LYRA ANDREA SILVERTONGUE

“Hello, Camile.”

I couldn’t. Seeing Adam being the one to welcome me made everything worse. Staring at Emily and Clarisse standing at his back made my guts twist at each other.

To believe that they, the people I’ve grown fond of, contributed in the death of my sister, is a feeling I cannot stomach. The Alpha guardians might have been the ones to deliver the last punch, but with all senses intact, they were only during their duties as protectors of the realm.

The Dothar are the ones responsible for putting her in the crosshairs of the guardians. So, I come to the one person who had treated her as a friend, and a lover. The one person bold enough to tell me what is going to befall me if I continue the path set aside for me.

Probably, the guardians would take up the task and end me when I eventually go rouge.

Camile’s blue eyes widens as they fall on me when the clock strikes twelve. She scans the area around me to see if I came alone, because, no one in their right senses would be so foolish to walk the dark hours of the morning, knowing the dangers floating around in Grimhowl Academy.

“May I come inside?” I mutter as her gaze widens further.

After a few seconds of intently staring into my green gaze, she steps aside and ushers me in. The minute I step foot into her den; the memory of the last time I was here floods my thoughts.

I close my eye and draw in the air and scent flooding her room, but most of it just filters through my airways the minute it touches my lungs.

“You’re cold, Lyra,” Camile retorts. “I can feel your skin freezing in on itself.” She turns and stares at me like she’s trying to piece together a memory. “How long have you been outside?”

“I can recall,” I reply, shaking my head from left to right as Camile brings a coat and places it on my shoulders. “Can you tell me what the Dothar is all about?”

Camile’s feet press to the ground the second the question leaves my lips. Even the air around her, still, as her hair dancing along with the wind comes to a halt. I can see the sharp lining of her jaws as she tilts her face sideways.

And when she fully turns so I see the knotting of her eyebrows, her blue eyes have never been colder as it is, right now. I’m almost tempted to drop the coat and excuse myself through the door, before that white coyote emerge from the shadows of her consciousness.

“I see,” she mutters. “You confronted them about what we discussed the other day.”

I nod my head in agreement, and pull in the fur tight into my skin.

“Did they tell you I begged them not to?” She asks, and I raise my eyebrows at her while my lips part, slightly. “They didn’t.”

“I just want to know what really happened to my sister while she was here?” I respond. “And my role in all of this.”

Camile drops her eyes to the ground before pointing at the seat nearby for me to take a sit. She leaves my presence for a minute, and by the time she comes back, there’s a glass of warm water in her hand. I take it from her when she stretches her hand and offers it to me.

She takes a seat in front of me, sipping her own glass of warm water before finally deciding to give me her undivided attention.

“The Dothar are a group of elites chosen by the head-wolf to oversee the coming of the comet,” Camile utters, and hearing the comet again for like the hundredth time, triggers something inside of me.

“You mean the coming of the Elder one,” I retort, and Camile nods her head, twice. “So, what has Jade got to do with it?”

Camile lets in a swallow slides down her throat, taking another sip of her water, before returning her attention to me, again.

“When Jade first arrived in Grimhowl, her bloodline triggered the change in the orbit only wolf-seer and Were-witches can recognize. We, the Dothars have been trained from birth to make certain she the comet comes, she carries out her duties as inscribed in the prophecies,” Camile responds, as I gulp down the last drop of water in the glass.

Camile empties hers, too, and let out a deep sigh.

I can see the heaviness boldly written on her face. The pain she tries to hide each time my sister’s name is mentioned. To meet someone who loved her like I did isn’t the kind of experiences I was hoping to get when I agreed to whatever my mother had demanded.

Although, the part I never quite understand with my mother, is the part where I’m required to marry a stranger. And also, finding out the man that held Echo captive was once the man that took me home from the woods.

Everything going on within me is so confusing, it’s like my brain needs to take another wheel to have a better understanding.

“But we were mistaken,” Camile continues. “She wasn’t the one with the Elder bloodline. Although she has traits, but it wasn’t enough. So, I told the leader of the Dothar to cancel everything, but they were too deep in it to stop. They believed Jade was a path to draw you into this Academy, and delivering that cursed book was the final act that led to your sister’s demise.”

Listening to Camile makes me want to wrap up everyone of them, and set their bodies and bones to ashes. The room has never been colder as it is right now. The heaviness settling deep in my eyes is because I’m doing everything in my power to restrict the tears gathered at the corners from rolling down my cheeks.

“And who exactly is the leader of the Dothar?” I inquire, as Camile draws air into her lungs.

“Ulfrida.”

The name strikes my eardrums, and thunders it’s way into the base of my skull.

“As in… clarisse’s grandma?” I retort, and Camile nods once.

My jaw drops, and my eyes widen.

“But… Clarisse told me…”

“She’s dead?” camile cuts in, and I have to rearrange myself on my seat. “Yeah, she lied about that, too.”

There’s ringing in my ears, and that’s because I cannot grasp the magnitude of the words spilling out of Camile’s mouth at the moment.

“Who else is in the damn group?” I retort, unsettled by the pitch in my own voice.

There’s rage somewhere within, and an anger I cannot name.

“Well, I guess you’ll find out when the sun rises,” Camile responds, and I knot my brows together. “Grimhowl is hosting and inter-competition, and all the other Academies in this realm will be in participation.”

The what…?

LUCIAN XANDER SILVERBACK

Something isn’t right.

I can feel it in my bones. The words coming out of Echo’s mouth isn’t what I had actually thought of.

“Culdron is part of the Order.”

One sentence, and that’s all it takes me to know that even I have been played. The Dothar has been played.

Everything Culdron has been after, it was under the disguise of the high court.

Echo says Culdron told him everything. They plan to bring the darkness back from Tartarus.

I can feel a fist punching my guts at the moment. I excuse myself from my brothers to go take a leak, but the real reason is because I may have unknowingly play into their music. All these while I think I am doing the right thing, and what’s best for my brothers and I.

But in reality, it was planned from the entire beginning.

And their leader, Silvertongue, and Lyra’s uncle is the mastermind behind it all.

This shifts the perspective from what we know at the moment.

And the highest we can do, is protect Lyra at all cost.

There’s a second heartbeat behind me as I watch the sun rise up in the sky.

It’s Kyle.

He comes and stands beside me, and I know the thoughts running through his head.

“You never told me why you gave her that black book,” Kyle mutters, and I take a deep breath, because I know shits about to get real.

“Because she’s the only one that can stop what’s coming, Kyle,” I answer, and Kyle turns and gives me his full attention.

“Have you forgotten what her sister did with that book, Lucian?” he retorts. “Why are you so certain she will be able to do different from what her sister did?”

I close my eyes, and reason out the next word pooling out of my lips.

“I think you’ve known for a while, Kyle,” I retort, and Kyle shifts his eyes away from mine.

“You can’t be serious, Lucian,” Kyle responds. “She possibly can’t be our mate.”

“You have felt the pull, haven’t you, brother. Her scent. It’s stronger than when we first met her.”

Kyle shakes his head, and I wonder why he’s in denial.

“If what Echo says is true, then the Order doesn’t know about her existence, yet,” Kyle says, and the sun rays gets stronger by the second.

We are soon joined by Echo and Dom, as we await the time everything descends on us.

“What do you think about seeing some old friends, again?” Dom asks, and we all he means the opposite of what he’s saying.

Kyle lets a rumble leaves his chest, and I know fury is about to rain down on Grimhowl Academy.

We might just record the highest bloodbath seen in an entire Academy’s competition.