Chapter 79 – The Echo in His Heart

Chapter 79 – The Echo in His Heart

SCARLETT

The night had never been this still. Even the wind seemed afraid to move through the shattered remains of the forest. Every tree was stripped bare, blackened by the energy that had burst from the beacon weeks ago. The air smelled of ash and rain, like the sky had been crying for days and only now had grown too tired to continue.

I walked barefoot through the mud, the hem of my cloak dragging behind me. My body still ached from the wounds I’d taken during the last fight, small, burning cuts that refused to heal because of the strange power pulsing through me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw John’s face… and behind it, something else. Something older.
Something that didn’t belong to him.

The bond between us had changed since the beacon fell. It wasn’t the same burning thread that used to pull at my chest whenever he was near. Now it felt fractured like shards of glass buried under my skin. But through the pain, there was still… something. A heartbeat. Deep and soft. Familiar.

Kael’s.

The first time I heard it, I thought I was dreaming. But the more I walked, the stronger it grew. It wasn’t just an echo of memory. It was real, alive , thrumming faintly beneath the pulse I shared with John. I didn’t know what it meant, but it terrified me. Because if Kael’s soul truly lived inside John’s darkness, then saving one of them might mean destroying the other.

And I wasn’t sure I had the strength for that.

The ground trembled under my steps as I reached the ridge overlooking the valley. From here, I could see the distant flicker of the campfires of surviving packs of wolves who had fled when the chaos began. What was once a landscape of unity had become scattered clans, each too afraid to trust the other. The beacon had not only unleashed the darkness it had shattered the world’s heart.

I crouched on the ridge, hugging my knees to my chest, watching smoke drift from the fires below. I wondered if any of them remembered the rejected Luna who once served coffee to her rival, who once begged her mate to love her. It felt like a lifetime ago. Now, I was something else. Not quite human, not quite wolf. Something in between.

“Scarlett…”

The voice brushed against my ear like a ghost’s breath. I froze. The tone was soft, weighted with pain and longing. It wasn’t John’s.
It was Kael’s.

My pulse jumped. “Kael?” I whispered into the wind. “Is that really you?”

No answer came, but the air thickened. The earth itself seemed to hum. My vision blurred, and I pressed a hand against my chest, right over my heart. The beat beneath my skin stuttered, then quickened in rhythm with another pulse not mine.

“Scarlett…” The whisper came again, clearer this time, right behind me.
I turned sharply. Nothing. Only mist rolling over the broken trees.

I swallowed hard. “Where are you?”

“You have to stop him,” the voice murmured, distant but urgent. “John isn’t himself. The darkness isn’t his anymore.”

“What do you mean?” My voice cracked. “If it’s not his then whose is it?”

But the air only answered with silence. My heart ached with the weight of it.

By dawn, I reached the river. The current was high and wild, frothing with silver light the mark of the Third Moon’s lingering energy. I knelt at the bank, washing my face in the freezing water, trying to steady my breathing. My reflection looked nothing like me anymore. My eyes, once soft brown, now shimmered faintly gold. Lines of light ran along my arms like veins carved by lightning.

The Seer’s gift, they called it. The price of touching the Goddess’s magic.
But I wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a curse.

I dipped my hands into the water again and felt it vibrate beneath my palms. The ripples shifted into a pattern. I froze as the image sharpened into John’s face. His expression was blank, his eyes a deep black ringed with gold. He looked lost, broken… but alive.

“John,” I breathed. The water flickered, his image wavered and then, for a brief second, I saw Kael behind him, like a reflection within a reflection.

My breath caught. Kael’s eyes glowed with the same color.
It was them. Both of them. In one body.

“No…” I whispered, shaking my head. “That can’t be.”

The vision shattered as the river surged, spraying water onto my face. I stumbled back, heart hammering. But deep down, I already knew the truth. Kael’s soul had merged with John’s darkness during the beacon’s collapse. Their energies intertwined, locked in a struggle for dominance.

The man I loved was no longer one person.

Later that night, I took shelter in an abandoned temple at the edge of the valley. The moonlight spilled through a hole in the roof, painting the cracked stone floor in silver. I sat beside the altar, lighting a small candle with trembling hands.

“Goddess,” I whispered, “if you can hear me, tell me what I’m supposed to do. How do I save them both?”

No divine answer came. Only the sound of the wind threading through the ruins. My throat tightened. “I don’t want to destroy him. I can’t. Even after everything John did to me, I can’t watch him fade.”

The flame wavered as a gust of air swept through the temple. For a second, I thought it would go out but it didn’t. Instead, it burned brighter, whiter, almost blinding.

And then I heard it again. That heartbeat.

It wasn’t Kael’s or John’s this time it was both, overlapping perfectly.
One rhythm. One soul.

I felt tears spill down my cheeks as I pressed a hand to my chest. “Please… please don’t make me choose.”

The candle flame flickered violently. The walls trembled. I looked up and gasped. Shadows moved across the ceiling, forming a shape of broad shoulders, a tall frame. My heart stopped.

“John?” I whispered.

The silhouette stepped forward, half light, half shadow. His eyes glowed faintly, one gold, one black.

“Scarlett,” he said, his voice low, rough, and layered as if two people were speaking at once.
“Why did you come back?”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart raced as I slowly stood. “Because I couldn’t leave you to do this. To her. To the darkness.”

His expression shifted pain, then anger, then something softer. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m not what you remember.”

I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. “You’re still him. Both of you are. I can feel it. You’re fighting it.”

He stepped closer. The floor creaked under his boots. “You don’t understand. The power I carry now it’s not meant for mortals. It’s the Goddess’s wrath itself. And it’s using me.”

“I do understand,” I said, taking another step forward. “Because it’s using me too.”

The air thickened between us, charged with something ancient and dangerous. I could see the war in his eyes, John's fury clashing with Kael’s warmth. For a heartbeat, I saw Kael’s smile flicker through the darkness, faint but real.

“Scarlett…” he murmured, and this time, it was Kael’s voice that spoke through him. “If I can’t control him, you’ll have to end it.”

My stomach dropped. “No. Don’t say that.”

“You have to promise me,” Kael’s voice pleaded, strained and fading. “If I disappear, don't let the world burn for my mistakes.”

Tears streamed down my face. “Kael, please there has to be another way!”

The darkness surged in his eyes. John’s voice came roaring back, colder than ice. “You think you can save me? You’re too late, Luna.”

The candle burst into a white flame, and before I could react, he vanished, swallowed by the shadows.

I stood there, trembling, the silence pressing down on me like a weight. My knees gave out, and I fell to the floor, clutching my chest as sobs tore through me. The echo of his voice still lingered in my ears, both of them, bound together by the same curse.

For the first time, I realized the truth of what Kael had tried to tell me.

The darkness consuming John wasn’t just corruption. It was the Goddess herself awakening through him.

And if that was true…
then the war I thought was ending had only just begun.