Chapter 14 Fourteen
Lilith
Light and sound crashed together, then vanished. When awareness returned, I was lying on the cold stone of the great hall.
The torches were out, the air thick with dust. My ears rang. Every heartbeat felt like a hammer inside my skull.
Shapes moved in the haze—first a blur of black and gold, then Ryan’s voice cutting through it, sharp and alive.
“Travis, what did you do?”
“I could ask you the same,” Travis answered. “Looks like our guest decided to redecorate.”
I tried to speak but only a cough came out. The walls shimmered faintly; the runes carved above the fireplace bled pale light, pulsing with the rhythm of my breath.
Ryan knelt beside me, his hands firm on my shoulders. “Don’t move.”
“She’s fine,” Travis said, too calmly. “You should worry about the house. It’s bleeding magic.”
Ryan ignored him. His touch was cold but steady. “Can you hear me, Lilith?”
“Yes,” I whispered. The word scraped like sandpaper.
“Good. Stay with me.”
He turned toward his brother, anger coiled tight beneath his control. “You shouldn’t have touched her.”
Travis laughed softly. “Relax. I just asked a few questions. She gave me… fascinating answers.”
Ryan’s jaw flexed. “You saw the flare.”
“I felt it,” Travis replied. “You brought something cursed into our home, brother.”
The light in the runes flared brighter. The entire manor groaned, dust falling from the rafters.
Both men looked up. “It’s reacting to her,” Ryan muttered. “It’s trying to contain her energy.”
“Contain?” Travis stepped closer, eyes bright with fascination. “Or crown her?”
The floor buckled slightly under his words. Ryan grabbed me before I could fall.
The moment his arm wrapped around me, the light dimmed. The house quieted.
Travis stared at us, realization dawning. “It listens to you,” he said to me. “It obeys you.”
Ryan’s glare snapped to him. “Enough.”
Travis smiled, slow and dangerous. “You can’t hide this now.”
Ryan stood, keeping me behind him. “Get out, Travis.”
“I live here too.”
“Not tonight.”
For a moment I thought they’d attack each other. The air between them rippled with barely leashed power.
Then Travis sheathed his dagger and turned toward the door. “You’re protecting the end of us,” he said without looking back.
“Whatever sleeps beneath this house will wake because of her. Remember that when it devours you.”
He left, footsteps echoing down the corridor until silence reclaimed the hall.
Ryan exhaled slowly, then knelt again. “Can you stand?”
I nodded. My legs trembled but held.
He guided me through a side passage I’d never seen before—a narrow stair curling downward into cool darkness.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Somewhere the wards can’t reach you.”
We descended until the noise of the upper floors vanished. A door of black iron waited at the bottom, carved with the same intertwined-wolf sigil from the old book.
Ryan pressed his palm to it; the metal hissed and opened.
Inside was a small chamber lit by blue flame, like the one from before. He laid me on a bench carved into the wall.
“This place was built to drain power,” he said. “It will keep you safe until the house stabilizes.”
Safe. The word felt strange coming from him.
I watched him pace the narrow room, every movement precise. He looked less like an executioner now and more like a man drowning quietly.
“What happens if it doesn’t stabilize?” I asked.
“Then the valley will burn,” he said without hesitation.
I shivered. “Travis won’t let this go.”
“No. But I’ll deal with him.”
His certainty both comforted and frightened me.
“Why are you helping me?”
He stopped pacing. The torchlight caught in his eyes, turning them glass-green.
“Because I can’t watch another prophecy destroy what’s left of us.”
Before I could speak, the blue flame guttered violently, bending toward the doorway.
Ryan stiffened. “He’s back.”
A knock, slow and deliberate, echoed through the metal. “Brother,” Travis’s voice drawled from the other side, muffled but unmistakable.
“Keeping secrets never ends well for you.”
Ryan drew a knife and positioned himself between me and the door. The flame flared brighter in response, its glow throwing strange sigils across the ceiling.
I felt them hum against my skin.
“Stay behind me,” Ryan whispered.
The iron door shuddered as if struck by invisible hands. Cracks of pale light traced across it, forming runes I didn’t recognize.
Ryan cursed under his breath, pressing his palm to the metal, trying to hold it closed.
“Travis, stop!” he shouted. “You can’t keep her forever,” came the answer.
“If the manor wants her, it will have her.”
The cracks spread wider. Blue sparks leapt from the walls, searing small burns across the floor.
The air smelled of lightning again.
I moved before I could think, reaching toward the door. The whisper inside me rose to a roar: Protect.
Light poured from my hands, weaving through the cracks like silver threads. The metal cooled beneath my touch.
The door stilled. Silence fell.
Ryan turned to me slowly. “What did you—”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
He looked at the sealed door, then at me, awe and fear battling in his eyes.
“You commanded it.”
I shook my head, but the truth was there between us. The house had obeyed me again.
From beyond the door came Travis’s laughter—soft, triumphant. “Now I know what you are,” he called.
“And so will everyone else.”
His footsteps receded, leaving only the echo of that promise.
Ryan ran a hand through his hair, breathing hard. “We’re out of time.”
“What does he mean?”
“He’ll summon the council,” Ryan said. “Once they know, you won’t be hidden—they’ll claim you as their weapon.”
I felt the chill of those words sink in.
“Then what do we do?”
He met my gaze, decision solidifying behind his eyes. “We run.”
When he left to prepare, I sat alone in the blue light. The walls whispered again—no longer threatening, but warning.
Faint images flickered behind my eyes: a moon split in two, wolves bowing before a woman crowned in silver flame.
They will come for you now, the whisper lingered in my mind.