Chapter 69 Uncle

Chapter 69 Uncle
The name hung in the frozen air of the cabin.

Uncle Lucian. I never knew I had an uncle all through my years with my father.

"Do you know him?" Vesper whispered. I shook my head in the negative.

"Lucian Seratti," Vesper raised his voice, a growl playing beneath his tone. He didn't stand up, but his Alpha aura flooded the cabin. "My father's intelligence files said you burned to ash in a car fire thirty years ago."

My head snapped towards Vesper. "You knew about him?"

Vesper didn't say anything. He simply slid his hand over mine, silently telling me to pause.

"A convenient illusion," Lucian’s smooth voice drifted through the splintered gaps in the front door. "Thomas was a brute who built his empire on concrete and blood. I looked deeper. I found the ancient magic. I found the binding artifacts of the First Age. I realized that the true power wasn't running a city—it was running the dark."

On the floor beside the hearth, Myla pressed her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror as she huddled next to Lily. Julian stood in front of them, his knuckles white around the rusted rebar, while Aleera kept her burned hands wrapped in a torn piece of cloth.

"You built nothing," Vesper snarled, his grip on my hand tightening protectively. "You’re not a king, Lucian. You’re a coward holding a leash you’re too weak to wear yourself."

Silence hung heavily on the porch. The insult hit its mark.

"What is going on here? You two talk like you know each other?" I said to break the silence.

"Brave words from a crippled boy hiding behind a wooden door," Lucian replied, his tone hardening. "You think these little fae wards can stop me? I have an army of the corrupted at my back, and the mother of monsters bound to my wrist. Sylvania belongs to me. She is the vessel I created to sit upon the Throne. Open the door, and I will let your little mortal friends live."

"No," I rasped, my voice shaking but resolute.

"Such a disappointment," Lucian sighed.

I felt it a split second before it happened—a massive, sickening spike in the magical pressure outside.

"The artifact!" Estava shrieked from the back wall, slamming her staff against the floorboards. "He's using the chains to batter the weave! I can't hold it!"

The cabin groaned. The logs shifted, dust pouring from the ceiling as an invisible battering ram slammed against the magical barrier. Outside, the corrupted pack of werewolves howled, then began throwing their bodies against the trembling wards.

My head snapped back as another spike of agony drove into my brain.

'He's forcing the door!' Hera’s voice echoed in the cavern of my mind. It was no longer a booming roar of possession; it was a desperate scream of a prisoner wanting to be free. 'The Onyx Moon gives the chains absolute power... I cannot stop him from merging us.'

I clamped my hands over my ears, tears streaming down my face. The iron wall I had built in my mind was cracking. Violet light began to bleed through my veins again.

"Sylvania!" Vesper pulled me tighter, roughly grabbing my chin. "Hold the line! Look at me!"

"I can't!" I choked out. "Vesper, he's using her to crush me. If she fights him, he tortures her. If she stops fighting, he takes my body. We're both trapped."

Estava fell to her knees, her staff trembling violently.

"The foundation is breaking!" Estava gasped. "Ten seconds until the perimeter falls!"

Time seemed to slow down. I looked at Sylvia shaking in the corner. I looked at Myla. I looked at Vesper, and at every single living soul in the room.

It felt like we had been corned. All our fighting had been for nothing. I had failed all of them.

I closed my eyes, tears breaking through my resistance.

"Don't give up. Giving up let's him win," Hera echoed in the back of my mind, but I was too demotivated to listen.

I didn't push the iron wall up. I let it drop. I plunged into the dark, violent ocean of my own mind, bypassed the fear, and swam directly toward the source of the ancient, chained power.

'Hera,' I projected down the mind tether.

The chaotic thrashing in my mind paused.

'Vessel?' she hissed, confused by my sudden surrender.

'He wants to use you to wear me like a suit,' I said. 'If we fight each other, he wins. He gets whatever throne he's been tapping about. But what happens if we stop fighting? What happens if we push back together?'

Silence stretched for a microsecond.

'If we strike as one...' she whispered, her voice tingling with sudden realization, 'we shatter the chains. We burn him to ash.'

'Then let's burn him,' I answered, feeling excitement flood through me.

I opened my eyes.

"Estava," I called out, but paused almost immediately after.

My voice carried a new dual resonance—a haunting, overlapping echo of Hera speaking in perfect unison with me.

Vesper flinched, his green eyes widening as he looked at my face.

"Drop the wards," I commanded.

Estava looked up from the floor, her wrinkled face pale with awe and terror.

"Sylvania..." Vesper whispered, his hands hovering over me, his expression loudly telling how unsure he was.

I reached out, tangling my fingers in his shirt, and pulled him down for a brief, fierce kiss.

"I'm here, Vesper," I murmured against his lips. "Both of us are. And we are very, very angry."

I stood up without wincing. The pain in my collarbone and arm was gone. Without wasting any more time, I tore off the sling and bandages, flexing my hand like I hadn't been able to do in a long time.

"Drop them, Estava!" I ordered.

Estava didn't argue. She lifted her staff and slammed the butt into the floorboards one final time. The green light extinguished. The grinding hum thar had been vibrating through the floorboards vanished into the cold night air.

The wards were down.

Outside, the corrupted pack howled in victory, surging forward.

I didn't wait for them to reach the porch. I raised my hand, the air around me warping with violent heat, and blew the heavy wooden front door completely off its hinges.