Chapter 177: 177

JASMINE

At the first sound of that old word from the second twin, every muscle in my body freezes in instinctive fear. The sound isn’t simply coming out of the baby’s mouth — it reverberates through the between-space itself, causing the crystalized moments of time in our immediate vicinity to crack and splinter as though we were pressuring glass.

"What did it say?" I whisper; pulling the twins close to my chest. The difference between them is shocking — Lucian’s silver light and this new baby’s black darkness seem to flutter in lockstep, half of the same heart, pulsing uses their word! I'm the one who takes the warmth of the one and the chill depth of the other, and I feel intentions, energies even, rushing to find balance within me.

“It said ‘Mother,’” Elena’s face is pale with shock. Her hands shake as she wipes the birth blood off the baby’s skin. “But in no mortal language. That was the First Tongue—the language spoken before the world was heralded into light and darkness.”

The implications physically punched me in the gut. My newborn baby just uttered in a language older than humanity, and somehow, some way, understood every single word. The maternal love we share speaks deeper than words, conveying feelings and ideas straight into my soul, like molten starlight.

“The dark twin isn’t bad,” I realize, my voice filled with awe and increasing confidence. "It's just... different. Older. It brings a memory of what was before the separation, before light and darkness went to war.

Nico kneels beside me, love and concern filling his eyes. There is a rip down his upper torso, the remnants of a claw mark, and his shirt is matted with his own blood, but he is looking at us with full attention. "Can you feel what it needs?"

I close my eyes, reach out with my mind towards the other twin, allow my mind to drift along the link that still binds us. The feeling is present and crushes you, you are touching a deep well of starlight and shadow that has no bottom. I do not feel malice through the bond, but an aching loneliness that wrenches my heart. This child was born with knowledge no one being should have to bear alone.

"She's gonna need a name," I say. "Just like her brother. "But it's got to be the right naming, the right old-fashioned style, or the balance gets upset before it's even begun."

"She?" The note of protective tenderness in Nico’s voice makes my chest tighten. Already, I can tell he is falling in love with this little creature, blackness and all.

"Nyx," I murmur, and as the word slips from my lips, the baby's black eyes snap toward me with surprising focus. Deep eyes that stare through you into what could be other worlds, propelled by a whirlwind of could-have-beens and never-will-bes.

Elena gasps, realization spreading across her face. " The ancient mythological personification of night. The mother of all darkness, but also the agency that allows dawn. There is no light without the darkness to reveal it.

Chaos entities have gone silent around us and for some reason they seem fascinated by the newly dubbed twins. They hover by the edges of the dimensional rift, their red eyes locked on Nyx in a way that may look like recognition, or awe. Their whispers are different now, no longer threatening, but almost… inviting.

“They’re not trying to corrupt her,” I realize with mounting awe. “They’re attempting to welcome her back. She is not their enemy, she is their rightful queen.”

Michael takes a step forward, his six-year-old self still aglow with remaining power. His face is too earnest for his years. These are the future versions of the twins. Kyne: As a wind god, Kyne doesn't control the wind. Nyx doesn't control darkness—She IS darkness. The darkness that is a prerequisite for light, that makes growth possible, that offers rest and dreams and peace — the peace that comes with endings.

The Heart of Prophecy twinkles in the sky above us, brighter and more convoluted. I see layers upon layers, colors without names, patterns that stir something primal in my soul. I realize what must happen next, and suddenly I know.

You have to see this," I'm saying, halfway between lifting my head off the pillow and passing out from fatigue. "The calling must be done by break of day, or the spirit will be unbalanced. “The twins will be strong, but they will never sort out how to work together.”

Nico helps me up, his strength keeping me on my feet as I'm carting two babies. My legs tremble and nearly buckle from the exertion, but I can’t appear vulnerable at a time like this. The pack is perched in a circle around us, their faces grave with the significance of what they’re about to witness. Even the chaos entities appear to be paying attention, their forms quivering in anticipation.

‘Lucian,’ I call out through the between, my voice extending beyond it, when it should be muted. The name is like a chime in the dimming afternoon air. “First born of prophecy, wielder of silver light, healer of blighted lands. You are the morning that breaks the longest night, The hope that will not die.

The baby boy’s aura flares in reaction, and I sense the pack’s collective intake of breath. His light is not merely a spotlight — it is a changing light that turns everything it touches into something greater than it is. Even the air vibrates songfully wheresoever his glory passes.

"Evening, Nyx" I carry on, addressing the little girl with the eyes as black as the night. Her name tastes like honey and starlight, fresh and warm in my mouth. “Second-born of the prophecy, protector of shadow knowledge, guardian of the gaps of time. You are the night that makes the glowing wine precious, you the fuel that flares into flame.

The second I utter the entire name, Nyx's darkness fans outward--not as taint, but as depth and context. Where Lucian’s light illuminates, Nyx’s shadow offers through which that light can have significance rather than being eye squinting. Together, they make something that takes my breath away.

But when they combine their powers for the first time, something strange occurs. The energy not only adds up — it creates something altogether new. A force that can make the air seem to sing with possibility, that transforms the frozen moments of the past into living memories that dance around us like fireflies.

“Their psychic powers are resonating,” Elena cries now, her voice high with fear. - They're forming some kind of dimensional feedback loop! The energy is building exponentially!"

She's right. The atmosphere around me starts to contort and flex, reality distorting like molten steel under some 20 tons of load. The frozen particles of time melt and fly, and the past seeps into the present like a burst dam. I glimpse potential futures, alternate timelines, scenes that could have been or may still be.

In an instant I can see the twins grown up, with their backs to each other, confronted with some dire threat. In the next, they are children, giggling as they clown in a garden that lives in curve, light and shadow. A third features them as teenagers, bickering with the vehemence only siblings can muster, as their powers make and unmake the air around them.

"Hold them steady!" Nico yells, his hands over mine as we struggle to hold back the twins' increasing force. "Don't let go! We should ground them with this reality!”

But it's too late. The twins’ combined power hits a peak, and a vibration that feels like it rattles my bones vibrates around, a rent large enough for two tanks to drive through it tearing open through empty air above us, with the sound of reality being torn in half. The edges of the rip crackle with power older than the earth, and beyond it I glimpse not a part of the mortal world, but something even older and more primal.

On the other side of the portal is the Ancient world, where the original supernaturals were spawned from the fabric of creation. Crystallised time towers, clad with scorched infinity, plunge into atmospheres where the air rages in hues that man has never named, and rivers of molten starlight snake across the banks of compressed maybe.

And something is coming through.

What steps through the portal is of a size too large to be fathomed, an entity whose age and power dwarfs all others, whose direct gaze is enough to make my mind spin at the very sight of it. It is not so much a thing of substance as a concept made tangible — the concept of beginnings, the moment when light and darkness first coalesced, began to dance, and in the process of dance learned one another instead of warred against one another.

“The Original,” Michael murmurs, his voice trembling with wonder and dread. "The first werewolf. The origin of all magical power. He who made the first choice of light and shadow.”

The attention of the being focuses on the twins, and I can feel its mind grazing against the side of me, like the caress of forever. I have a chilling insight at that moment into the scope of what we've unleashed. The twins are not only powerful, they’re the path forward in the next step of supernatural evolution, the nexus between what has been and what could be.

But as Original’s arm extends toward my children, for either blessing or judgment, the entropics suddenly lunge with a fresh vehemence. Their owner is here now and they are aware this is their last chance to take claim of the twins.

”Nico,” I whisper holding the twins closer as reality splinters further. I'm not sure we are ready for it. The twins are too young, too strong. If they lose control now..."

He takes my hand in his, and I feel through our mate bond how steadfast he is. “Then we’ll prepare,” he says, and his voice is that of a victorious alpha who has never been stopped. "Whatever it takes. Our children won't have to go through this alone.”

The Original is here, now it becomes stronger, hardening into something that could have once been human, but now a being that defies mortal bounds. Just as it fully coalesces in the between-space, a dawning dread hits me: This ancient entity hasn’t come to bless the twins — it’s present to try them.

And the test may be the very thing that obliterates everything we’ve struggled to save.