Chapter 164 Hundred and sixty seven

Chapter 164 Hundred and sixty seven
Ryder, I’m coming for you,” Sienna whispered before her voice broke, the words trembling through the ruins as if carried by the stone itself.

The sound of her own breath filled the shattered chamber, sharp and uneven, each inhale a painful reminder of what had just happened, of what she had just lost. Her palms pressed into the cracked floor where moonlight had bled like liquid silver moments ago. The glow had faded now, leaving only the cold imprint of the goddess’s warning and the echo of Ryder’s desperate plea still ringing in her skull. Her fingers curled against the stone as the night around her seemed to hold its breath.

She rose slowly, her legs unsteady but her resolve carved from something unbreakable. “You think I’ll let you vanish without me?” she murmured again, her voice stronger this time, directed at the emptiness before her. “Not a chance.”

The Moon Temple ruins groaned as wind swept through the broken pillars. Loose dust spiraled in thin, ghostly trails, as though the air itself recognized her anger. She walked toward the outer archway, the soft glow of the last moon brushing her skin with an otherworldly chill. The sky looked wrong, clouds drifting in reverse, stars flickering in strange patterns, everything shifting as though touched by divine fingers trying to rewrite time.

A shadow moved near the treeline. Someone had followed her here.

“I know you’re there,” Sienna said without hesitation. Her tone cut through the air like a blade, steady and commanding. “Show yourself.”

A figure broke away from the pines, one of her rebels, a young scout named Ralen. His boots skidded on stone as he stopped a few feet from her, chest heaving as though he had sprinted the whole way. “Your Majesty, please, there’s movement in the east. The shadow tears… they’re spreading. Whatever took him, whatever pulled Ryder, it’s not done.”

Sienna didn’t even blink. “How many tears?”

“Three that we’ve counted. Maybe more in the deeper forest. And…” Ralen swallowed, looking almost afraid to continue. “Something is coming out of them.”

She stepped closer, her gaze narrowing. “What kind of something?”

“Wolves, but not our kind.” His voice dropped lower. “They move like smoke. Like their bodies are barely real until they strike.”

Sienna’s anger tightened into something sharp enough to draw blood. Lunaris wasn’t only taking Ryder. She was stacking every possible enemy between them.

“Tell the others to fall back to the lower ridge,” Sienna ordered. “No one enters the forest until I say so.”

“Alone?” Ralen blurted. “You can't go in alone.”

She gave him a look that silenced the protest instantly. “There are battles only I can fight.”

Her footsteps echoed as she walked past him into the clearing, her cloak brushing the stone like a whisper of storm clouds. The forest loomed ahead, dark and endless, shadows shifting as if listening. The wind pressed against her back, urging her forward. A branch snapped to her right, another presence hiding.

Sienna didn’t turn. “If you followed me for another lecture, save your breath.”

A familiar voice answered, rough and unwilling. “I followed you because you’re about to walk into a god’s trap.”

Zorah stepped from behind a fallen pillar, her dark hair tangled with leaves, her hands wrapped in bandages still stained with last week’s battle. Her eyes burned with worry she refused to admit, but her jaw was locked in its usual stubborn line. “I know you want him back,” Zorah said, “but if Lunaris pulled Ryder into the realm between… he may not be the same when you find him.”

“He wasn’t the same before she took him,” Sienna replied quietly.

“Exactly.” Zorah stepped closer, lowering her voice. “And that was before the goddess had him alone. She’ll twist him in ways we won’t understand. You need a plan.”

Sienna faced her friend. “My plan is to take him back.”

Zorah exhaled sharply through her teeth. “You’re impossible.” But there was a flicker of admiration in her voice. “Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Sienna said immediately.

“Too bad,” Zorah shot back.

Sienna’s expression didn’t soften. “The realm between life and death only opens for those tied to him. You aren’t connected to Ryder through the curse. I am.”

Zorah’s eyes widened. “Sienna… that means the door will close behind you.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll have no guarantee of coming back.”

“I know.”

Zorah shook her head. “Does he even know how much you’d risk for him?”

“I’m not doing this for him alone,” Sienna said. “I’m doing this because Lunaris will not own the ending of our story.”

Zorah watched her for several seconds, the tension between them stretching like a drawn bowstring. Then she lifted her hands in a quiet gesture of surrender. “Just come back. Both of you.”

Sienna nodded once and stepped into the forest.

The trees closed around her like a living wall, the scent of moss and cold stone thick in the air. Branches curled above her head, creating a tunnel of twisting shadows lit only by the pale glow of the fractured moon. Her heartbeat thundered, not in fear but in a fierce, consuming determination that pushed her deeper into the dark.

She whispered, “Ryder… where are you?”

A sharp whisper answered her, not spoken aloud, but echoing through her mind.

Closer.

She froze, breath caught in her throat. That voice, thin, frayed, barely stitched together, was unmistakable. “Ryder?” she whispered, scanning the shadows for the source. “Ryder, can you hear me?”

Don’t… come…

His voice broke apart as though sliced by invisible claws.

Her pulse spiked. “I’m not leaving you.”

The air ahead warped. A tear in reality spread open like a wound. Darkness poured from it, curling along the forest floor before rising in wisps. The temperature dropped until her breath turned white. The tear pulsed, widening, its edges trembling like torn muscle.

A figure stepped out.

Not Ryder.

A wolf, large, spectral, its eyes burning with violet fire, emerged with a low, rumbling snarl. Its body flickered between solid and smoke, every movement unnatural. Its growl shook leaves from trees, the sound vibrating through Sienna’s bones.

Sienna did not flinch. “Move,” she ordered.

The wolf lunged.

She pivoted, the power beneath her skin rising like molten silver. Her hand lifted, glowing from palm to wrist, and she slammed it against the beast’s skull. The force blasted through the clearing. The creature howled as its smoky form shredded, dissolving into ash.

But the tear widened further.

Three more wolves crawled through it.

Sienna’s hands curled, silver light burning brighter. “You want to bar my path?” she whispered. “Then you’ll die for her.”

They lunged.

And she met them head-on.

Silver exploded from her fingertips, arcing across the clearing like lightning. Wolves shattered into smoke, their bodies collapsing into dark dust. But for every one she destroyed, another stepped out of the tear. Ten. Fifteen. Maybe more. The forest filled with snarls and glowing eyes.

Sienna’s breath tore from her lungs as she sent another surge of energy ripping through them. Trees split. Stone cracked. Her power roared through her veins, wild and terrifying, threatening to consume her. The tear pulsed again, this time with a different light.

A whisper curled through her mind.

Sienna… stop…

Her eyes widened. “Ryder?”

Don’t come… she’ll take you too…

“I’m already taken,” Sienna said through clenched teeth as she forced another wave of power outward, obliterating a line of beasts. “I belong to no goddess.”

The tear rippled violently, as if reacting to her defiance. For a heartbeat, she saw something through it. Not clearly. Shadow. Light. A figure on its knees. A hand clawing through nothingness. Ryder’s shape, shaking, flickering, fading.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Ryder!”

His head lifted toward her, and she saw the pain etched into the ghostly outline of his face.

Run, he whispered.

She stepped toward the tear.

Every wolf in the clearing turned toward her at once.

The forest trembled.

The tear expanded in a violent burst, swallowing the trees, the ground, the air.

Sienna braced herself as the world split open.

And then everything snapped into darkness.