Chapter 178
MICHAEL
As soon as we mark through the portal into the between-space, the gravity of every time I’ve touched, everything, closes over me. I’m shivering, sunburned, six years old and yet possess the thoughts of centuries that should not be scrambled into the mind of someone this young. We are in the twilight realm, stretching out into infinity around us, a place where time drags like syrup and space hews to the will and intent of... well, of what?
“Mami, I have to tell you something,” I say, my voice ringing with that load, otherworldly sound that even gets to me. "I've been to the future. Many futures."
Jasmine tightens her hold on the twins, the silver light of Lucian throwing dancing shadows on her face while Nyx's purple radiance pulses like a heartbeat. The babies are incredibly placid for newborns, their eyes open as they fix upon our movements with uncanny intelligence.
"What did you see?" she says, her voice taut with exhaustion from the birth.
“I’ve seen this moment through seventeen different channels,” I say, letting my small hands ignite with that familiar fire. "In most timelines, we lose. The twins' birth is successfully corrupted by the cultists. “But there is a future where we win.”
Protect/Come closer/Here. Nico gets closer, protectiveness waving in his pack bond. His shirt is shredded and bloodstained from the helicopter crash, but his eyes are sharp and clear. "What makes this timeline different?"
“Only in this one, I remember actually meeting you. I gesture toward the twins. I saw Lucian and Nyx, but as they will appear in the future—three months ahead when I was experimenting with the portals. They have warned me about this very instant.
The memory comes rushing back — late at night, two figures materialize in my bedroom, their faces familiar but aged, carrying the weight of decades. The future Lucian had been a young man with silver hair and eyes the color of molten starlight, and Nyx had been a beautiful woman with purple shadows that swirled around her like clouds.
“They didn’t look the same,” I add, shutting my eyes to conjure up their faces from memory. “Older, more powerful, but also … sad. Future Lucian said to me that in many timelines, they are enemies. And the balance of light and dark swings too much in one direction and the lightsabers are gonna rip through their concept of each other.”
Elena's face pales. “That’s why the prophecy calls the twins saviors and destroyers.
"Exactly," I nod. “But in this universe, things go differently. Nyx didn't tell me what, but she mentioned the key was trust. That the twins must learn to have faith in one another since day one.”
The inbetween shimmers around us: time in all the colors of twilight surrounded lost drops of time suspended in some time eons ago. Here we can rest, plan, prepare. But as I talk, I can feel the disturbance shuddering through the multi-verse;a wrongness that turns my wolf nature to a shivering heap of hopelessness.
“The cultists are not done,” I go on and can sense the familiar tingling of a vision coming on. “They’re attempting to punch holes in the barriers between realities. They want to make the twins’ birth be retroactive.”
Elena's eyes widen with understanding. "That's impossible. The birth already happened."
“Not in the between-space,” I tell her, indicating the churning chunks of time around us. “Here, cause and effect behave differently. There is no past, present or future; everything is happening now. If they can come back to us by going through the dimension rifts, it means they can affect what occurs in the grove still.
Almost as on cue, the air between us was starting to crack. Black lines of thin detonator energy run across the twilight and through them I see flashes of red eyes and misshapen forms. The chanting of the cultists gets louder, their voice echoing from other planes of existence to increasingly destroyed.
And you stay with me tight,” I order, my voice taking on an authority that should not be the voice of a child. “I’m going to form a shield around me.”
I hold my hands out and the energy runs out of me like starlight liquid. There is a barrier around us, a dome of lustrous energy that holds the entities of chaos at arm’s length. But I can feel them pushing against it, trying to find weakness with claws that rasp at the fabric of reality itself.
"Michael," comes a soft voice, "how long do you keep this up?"
“Long enough,” I say, though I’m not sure of the length. I can feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead from the strain and my limited energy stores are dwindling more quickly than I would prefer. "But there's something else. The Heart of Prophecy—it's coming."
"What's the Heart of Prophecy?" Nico says, hand instinctively going to where his weapon would have been.
“I’m the source of all werewolf magic,” I grate out through clenched teeth, the words sounding tense. “It’s attracted to big time supernatural incidents. The twins’ birth is summoning it through the dimensions. It is supposed to become visible at the worst possible moment," future Lucian warned.
I can see a brilliant light on the other side coming through the between-space. It thrums with ancient, older-than-the-Original, older-than-the-first-werewolf-pack power. The air itself sings when it gets close, there's a harmonic with the twins' auras, I can feel it in my bones.
“When it comes,” I press on, “the ‘worshippers’ will do their work once more. They can’t corrupt the twins directly, they know that, so they’ll try corrupting the Heart itself.”
The light becomes brighter, and I sense its overwhelming weight bearing down on my mind. I see flashes of moments—the first transformation into a werewolf, the creation of the supernatural, the time when light and dark first danced together rather than broke each other.
“I have to tell you about older versions of them, the twins,” I say frantically, feeling we are at my final moments here. Whеn thеу visited mе, Lucian told mе that when thе greatest danger come I must choose between protecting they, and protecting you.”
"What did you choose?" Elena inquires and steps closer to Jasmine and the babies with her healer’s sense.
“I wanted to believe them,” I answer recalling Future Lucian’s words exactly. “Only by allowing the barrier to fall at the precise moment could everyone be saved,” he said to me. He told Laura the babies needed to meet the chaos entities, as newborns."
A memory of that conversation comes rushing back—how Future Lucian had looked, with his silver eyes full of pain as he told her about the price of their power. He stated that power without fight is worthless. That they must earn their bond in hardship, not be shielded from it.”
The Heart of Prophecy comes like the song of crystal. It floats above us, an orb of white-hot light that causes their auras to pulse. One tiny hand of Lucian's reaches toward it, his pale little face turned upward as Nyx stares back with her wise purple eyes.
"They recognize it," I breathe. "The Heart knows them."
But just as the Heart comes to a halt above us, the chaos forces' attack begins to carry more and more momentum. The wall breaks, cracks spider-webbing and seeping shadow into our safe haven. The chanting of the cultists suddenly reaches its loudest as all their voices coalesce into one terrible harmony.
"Michael!" Nico yells, rushing to protect Jasmine and the twins. "The barrier is failing!"
“And it is supposed to,” I say, recalling Future Lucian’s precise words. “The barrier needs to come down now, or we’ve lost everything.”
I allow the bubble to dissipate as the Heart of Prophecy floats toward the twins. The instant it makes contact with them, all hell breaks loose. Rifts erupt in dimensions around us, and from them emerge figures of living darkness and decay—abominations that occupy the cracks between one’s thoughts, the cracks in which they feed upon one’s terror and grief.
But something unexpected happens. The twin’s auras flare as the chaos beings rush toward us. In it, Lucian’s silver light doesn’t battle Nyx’s purple shadows — they blend together, and create something new entirely. A force that sends to hell of the chaos beings.
Impossible, I whisper, even as I sense Future Lucian slipping away from my mind, his task fulfilled.
The twins drift comfortably in their mother’s embrace, their combined strength forming a wall that is much stronger than anything I could have produced. And at that point, I see why they needed to visit me, those future themselves. We needed to make sure I’d be willing to let the gate down; only by fronting the chaos head on could they fully access their powers.
The Heart of Prophecy throbs once, twice, and then turns into a twinkling galaxy of motes that descend onto the twins as a blessing. And as the final wraith of chaos vanishes through the close of the rifts I sense the prophecy settle over us like a shroud.
But just as the battle grows winnable, I feel a new shake rippling through the dimensions. An ancient, vast "thing" stirs, attracted by the twins' show of strength. And with mounting dread, I know this was only the start.