Chapter 190: The Sky That Trembled

“She did not vanish. She unraveled the world and walked between the seams.”

SIA’S POV

The veil closed behind her.

No scream. No light.

Just silence.

It was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard.

Kai stood beside me, unmoving, his hand still wrapped in mine. We both watched the place where Amarenthe had disappeared — the place where a daughter and a god had become something else entirely.

“She’s gone,” I whispered.

“No,” Kai said, eyes distant. “She’s changing.”

I wanted to believe him.

But the air around us said otherwise.

When we stepped out of the Divide, the world had shifted.

Subtly.

But deeply.

The forest was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that meant peace — the kind that meant everything had gone still, holding its breath.

The trees leaned toward us, branches bent in unnatural curves.

The sky was dim, though the sun should have been rising.

And there was a scent in the air — not blood, not ash.

Memory.

As if the past had been peeled open, and everything inside it was leaking into now.

Kai and I didn’t speak for a long time. Our fingers remained interlocked, but words felt too fragile. Too unworthy.

When we reached the outer ridge of the pack’s territory, the first sound we heard was not voices.

It was laughter.

Not joyous.

Not mocking.

Familiar.

High. Childlike.

And far too close.

I drew my dagger, instincts firing.

Kai stepped protectively in front of me.

But then.

A small figure emerged from the fog.

Barefoot.

Wearing a white shift.

Her hair was long and silver-blonde, her eyes pale gold.

She looked around six years old.

And when she saw us, she smiled.

“I’ve been waiting a long time,” she said.

KAI’S POV

There are things your soul knows before your brain does.

The moment I looked into her eyes, I knew she wasn’t human.

Not a shifter.

Not a witch.

Something else.

She tilted her head at us and said, “Is this the right cycle? The eighth one?”

I stared at her.

“What are you?”

She laughed. “I’m not what. I’m when.”

Sia knelt, her eyes wide.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

The girl smiled.

“I don’t remember. But the last time I was here, your daughter hadn’t been born yet. And your gods hadn’t bled.”

The words twisted inside me.

Sia’s breath caught.

“You’ve been here before?”

She nodded. “Many times. This world repeats itself. Over and over. But this is the first time one of you remembers me.”

She pointed at Sia.

SIA’S POV

The air around the girl pulsed like a heartbeat.

Faint. Off-rhythm.

She didn’t feel like danger.

But she felt like a key.

To something I hadn’t opened yet.

“What do you want from us?” I asked.

She turned to the tree behind her and tapped the bark.

Symbols appeared — glowing red.

A language I hadn’t seen in years.

I stepped closer.

And my knees buckled.

Because I could read it.

Not with my eyes.

With something deeper.

Like my bones had stored the memory.

It read:

“Sia. They will lie. They will say she belongs to them. Don’t listen. Amarenthe is not the end. She is the door.”

My hand trembled as I touched the symbols.

Blood. It was written in blood.

My blood.

Kai moved beside me, jaw tight.

“What does it say?”

I translated.

His expression darkened.

“That’s her. She left it here for you.”

The little girl giggled.

“She’s clever, isn’t she? Always hiding pieces of herself in the roots.”

I turned to her. “Do you know where she is now?”

The girl stepped back into the mist.

Her voice drifted after us:

“Follow the place where the moon forgets to rise.”

And she was gone.

KAI’S POV

We returned to the pack house.

But it wasn’t the same.

My warriors avoided my eyes. Whispers clung to the walls like spiderwebs. Even the walls felt narrower.

As if the building remembered a version of history I didn’t.

I touched the scar on my chest.

It pulsed faintly — once.

Then went still.

Later that night, I found Sia in our old room.

She sat at the window, watching the horizon.

“Do you think we made the right choice?” she asked.

I sat beside her, wrapping my arms around her waist.

“I think we made the only choice.”

She leaned into me.

And for a moment—

We were just us again.

Two broken souls trying to rebuild.

Until the mirror cracked.

Not from outside.

Not from pressure.

From within.

It spiderwebbed, and black liquid oozed from the split.

Words formed across the glass in the same red script as the tree.

“She is awake. And she is not alone.”

Sia stood.

The temperature dropped.

And outside the window.

The moon vanished.

Like it had blinked out of existence.