Chapter 165 On the Battlefield
Magda stepped in to the great room, her graying hair pulled back into its signature efficient knot. She took one look at the scene—the discarded medical tome on Ginny’s lap and the escalating chaos on the rug—and let out a dry, knowing huff.
"I see you’ve reached the part of the book where the diagrams make you want to swear off motherhood entirely," Magda said, stepping over a stray wooden block to reach Ginny. She gently took the heavy book, snapping it shut. "The problem with those old texts is they treat the miracle of a pack birth like a mechanical failure waiting to happen. You're doing fine, Ginny. Your heart is steady, and your scent is as sweet as clover. Stop looking at the pictures of the bones and start listening to your body."
She turned her attention to Leela, her sharp eyes softening as they swept over her Luna. "And you. Walking into a den of snakes dressed like that? You’re lucky your blood pressure didn't pop the seams. But Zephyr seems content enough."
Just as Leela opened her mouth to reply, a muffled, hollow thump came from the center of the room.
The "basket game" had reached its inevitable conclusion. Caspian had managed to flip the wicker basket entirely upside down and crawl underneath it. However, in his excitement to "hide," he had somehow wedged his shoulders into the tapered bottom. The basket was now waddling across the rug on tiny, frantic legs, letting out indignant shrieks.
"Mama! Stuck!" came the vibrating cry from within the wicker.
"I’ve got him," a deep voice rumbled from the doorway.
Fennigan had walked in just in time to witness the wandering basket. He looked at Leela with a raised eyebrow, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. "I leave for twenty minutes to talk strategy, and my heir becomes a turtle?"
He knelt beside the trapped toddler, his large hands dwarfing the basket. He didn't just rip it off; he had to carefully tilt the wicker while Briar "helped" by sitting on top of the upside-down bottom, giggling and adding her weight to the problem.
"Easy, Briar, let's not squash your brother," Fennigan chuckled. He gently pried the wicker edges apart, creating just enough space for Caspian to slide out.
Caspian emerged with messy hair and a face flushed red from effort, immediately lunging for Fennigan’s neck. "Bite me, Dada!"
"The basket didn't bite you, you tried to wear it like a hat," Fennigan said, lifting the boy into the air and settling him on his hip. He looked over at Ginny and Magda, his expression turning slightly more serious, though the warmth remained. "I hope you ladies are enjoying the peace, because Jax just finished the first round of decryption. We know where the other labs are."
Magda sat down on a stool, her weathered hands resting on her knees as she prepared to bridge the gap between their morning and the dark reality of the Elementals' history.
"You think I’m just a grumpy old healer who likes to nag about bed rest," Magda began, her voice dropping into a low, raspy cadence that commanded silence. Even the twins seemed to sense the change in the air, settling into the basket with wide, quiet eyes. "But I’ve seen the seasons turn more times than I care to count. I’m older than dirt, and I was around when the shadows first started closing in on the old blood."
She looked directly at Leela, her gaze piercing. "I was a young medic in the Capital when the last of the Elementals were being 'rounded up' for their own protection. They pulled me into those high-vaulted rooms and told me of all the 'good' they were doing. They spoke of stabilization, of harnessable power for the safety of the realm. I had heard the rumors—the screams in the sub-levels, the way the air would turn heavy before a 'specimen' went quiet—but I could never prove a thing. That’s why I walked away. I quit medicine in the Capital because I refused to be a witness to a genocide dressed up as science."
She reached out, her calloused hand covering Leela’s, grounding the Luna as the weight of the legacy settled onto her shoulders.
"I came here to the Blackwood Pack to find peace, but the Goddess has a sense of irony. This is why I watch you like a hawk, Leela. You aren't just a Luna. You are bringing the Elementals back into a world that tried to extinguish them. You and Fennigan... you are the storm that has finally found its heart."
Magda leaned back, the creak of her wooden stool the only sound in the room as the weight of her words settled. She looked down at her hands—hands that had mended thousands of wounds but still felt the stain of the Capital’s cold, sterile laboratories.
"They offered me titles," she said, her voice dropping into a dry, mocking rasp. "They offered me a seat on the Medical Board and enough gold to live in a manor by the sea. All I had to do was keep my head down and 'monitor' the decline of the specimens they brought in. They called it research; I called it slow-motion murder."
She looked up, her eyes flashing with a spark of the fire she had carried out of the city decades ago.
"I told them to keep their job. I told them I’d rather rot in the dirt than spend another day measuring how much life a soul can lose before it breaks. I turned my back on the Capital, on their science, and on their 'progress.' I came back here to Blackwood to be a healer for the pack—and just the pack."
She squeezed Leela’s hand, her thumb brushing over the pulse point in her wrist.
"I thought I had outrun that darkness. I thought if I stayed in the mountains, I’d never have to see that 'Crimson Seal' on a medical report again. But the Goddess has brought the fight to our front door. She brought you here, Leela, and she gave you a mate who would rather burn the world than let them touch you. I’m not just here to deliver your babies. I’m here to make sure history doesn't repeat itself."
Fennigan stood like a sentinel behind the sofa, his hand resting on the back of Leela’s chair. The grim reality of Magda’s past was the final piece of the puzzle. The Council wasn't just a political body; they were the architects of a long-standing cruelty that was now aiming for his family.
"They won't get a second chance, Magda," Fennigan promised, his voice low and vibrating with a lethal certainty. "Blackwood is where their 'science' ends."
Leela looked from Magda to Fennigan, feeling the surge of Zephyr within her—a restless, powerful energy that seemed to echo her own resolve. "If they want to see what an Elemental can do," she whispered, "we’re going to show them. Not in a lab, but on the battlefield."