Chapter 67 THE RELIC
CHAPTER 067: THE RELIC
The emergency meeting convenes in the Great Hall at midnight.
Council members fill the front rows. Academy leadership lines the walls. And at the center, like wounded animals on display, are the two survivors from the Eastern Pack.
The girl can't be older than sixteen. Mira. She's curled into herself despite the blankets around her shoulders, eyes distant and seeing something that isn't here.
Elder Grayson beside her looks half dead already.
"Tell them," Thorne commands. No gentleness.
Mira flinches. Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Grayson speaks instead, his voice scraped raw. "He came with an army. Killed everyone. But he was searching for something specific."
"What?" Corvus asks.
"The Heart of Shadows. Ancient artifact hidden in our territory for generations. Passed through Alphas. We were sworn to protect it." His hands shake. "He killed our Alpha first. Took it from his corpse while it was still warm. Those silver eyes, those symbols. When he used magic we just fell."
My fingers find the marks on my arms without deciding to.
"One of seven seals binding the Covenant," Professor Elms says, already halfway through a book. "If destroyed it weakens the prison. One seal won't release them but it starts the process."
The hall erupts.
Thorne raises a hand. Silence falls instantly. "How many seals has he obtained?"
"Just the one," Corvus says.
"Where are the others?"
"We don't know," Celeste admits. "Locations were scattered after the binding. Only the original Phoenix knew all seven."
Every eye in the room finds me.
"I don't remember," I say quietly. "I don't have past life memories like that."
"Perhaps they'll return when needed," Elms suggests.
"Or they're gone," I say. "And we find another way."
Thorne stands. "We form teams. Multiple groups tracking different leads. We find those seals before Caius does."
"And Thalira's team?" Corvus asks.
"Tracks Caius directly."
Kieran's on his feet before Thorne finishes the sentence. "That's suicide."
"That's strategy." Commander Frost still doesn't look at him. "Caius wants the Phoenix. We use her."
"No," Kieran growls. The others rise around me without a word.
"You don't get a vote wolf," Thorne says.
"They do," I say, standing. "Because I'm not going without them." I meet Thorne's gaze. "But I'll do it. I'll track Caius. I'll be your bait."
Luna grabs my arm. "Thalira—"
"You're meant to live," she says, voice breaking.
"I'll do both." I squeeze her hand. "I promise."
Corvus closes the meeting with one sentence. "One week to prepare."
Seven days.
My powers stabilize slowly through the week. Fire hotter but more controlled. Healing consistent. Lie detection improving. I train with Luna, study with Sofia, learn shadow magic from Morgana. I carve out individual time with each of the boys because if this mission goes wrong I want them to know they mattered.
On the sixth night Alaric finds me in the library.
"Come with me."
"Where?"
"Away from all this. Just for a few hours."
He leads me through empty corridors to a tower room I've never seen. Candles everywhere, soft and warm. A table set with actual china, food that smells like someone cared about making it.
"When did you do this?" I breathe.
"Been planning all week." He pulls out my chair. "I wanted one perfect evening before everything gets dangerous again."
We eat slowly. Talk about nothing important. Favorite books, places we want to see, things that make us laugh. Normal in a way nothing's been in months.
"I've loved you for fifty years," Alaric says suddenly, setting down his fork. "Across lifetimes, deaths, resurrections. But this is the first time I've gotten to just be with you. No crisis. No war."
"Me too," I admit.
"If something happens on this mission—"
"Nothing will happen."
"But if it does." He takes my hand across the table. "You're the reason I survived fifty years of emptiness. The reason immortality doesn't feel like a curse."
My throat tightens. "Alaric."
"I know you love the others. I don't care about traditional. I just need you to know you're everything to me."
"You're everything to me too. You and them. All of you." I shake my head. "I don't know how I got this lucky."
"We're the lucky ones."
He comes around the table, pulls me up and kisses me like he's memorizing something. We end up on the window couch, tangled together, not doing anything more than holding each other. It feels sacred anyway.
"When this is over, where do you want to go?" I ask, my head on his chest.
"Anywhere. Everywhere." His fingers trace around the silver marks on my arm. "As long as we're together."
"Two hundred years of practice at good answers."
He laughs. I tilt up to kiss him again.
The alarm tears the moment open.
We run.
The courtyard is chaos. Students pouring from buildings, faculty shouting orders, the boys already there looking up at something that stops my blood cold.
A crack splits the air itself, bleeding darkness from ground to tower. Reality torn like paper.
Through it, another realm. Dark. Endless. Full of shapes that hurt to look at.
The Covenant.
Watching. Waiting.
One moves closer to the tear. Massive, its form shifting between states of matter.
When it speaks the ground shakes.
"Soon."
One word. It carries the weight of inevitability.
The crack seals slowly, darkness receding. Within minutes it's gone. Nothing left but scorch marks and the terror on every face around me.
Corvus appears at my shoulder. "A warning. They're testing the barriers. Seeing how weak the seals have become."
"How long do we have?"
"Days. Maybe a week."
"They know where I am," I say quietly.
"They've always known," Zev says. The others have gathered close. "You're a beacon. Have been since the transformation."
"Then going after Caius—"
"Is more dangerous than we thought," Alaric says. "He's not just hunting seals. He's keeping you occupied while they prepare."
Silence.
Luna breaks it. "We do what we always do. We fight anyway."
She's right. No other option.
"One week," Thorne announces across the courtyard. "Then we move."
I look at the boys. At Luna. At faces I've come to love without planning to.
Seven days to say everything that needs saying.
Because the crack might be sealed but I can still feel them watching.
Soon, they said.
And every part of me believes them.