Chapter 62

SELENE'S POV

The silence in the Core pressed against my ears until it felt like I was underwater. Even Kai’s breathing sounded distant, as if something thick and heavy separated us from the real world.

He leaned against me for balance, but I could tell he was trying to hide how badly he was hurt. His eyes stayed fixed on where the First Queen had vanished, his jaw clenched hard enough to crack.

“Kai,” I said quietly. “We need to move.”

He nodded, but when he pushed off the ground, his legs wobbled. I grabbed him by the arm. The heat beneath my palms pulsed with a faint silver glow.

“The Core is feeding on you,” he muttered.

“No,” I said, though the word tasted like ash. “It is responding to me.”

“That is the same thing.”

I looked around.

The chamber had changed.

Where smooth stone had stretched before, now the walls rippled with shifting carvings. The lines were not still drawings. They moved. Wolves running. Wolves kneeling. Wolves crowned with light. The stories carved here breathed as though the stone had lungs.

Kai followed my gaze. His voice lowered. “This place is wrong.”

“It is older than wrong.”

A tremor rolled beneath our feet. A long, slow pulse. The same rhythm as my heartbeat, but deeper, slower, ancient. The silver veins along the floor brightened to match.

Kai took my hand. His grip was firm but cold. “Selene. This place is alive. It hears you. It listens to you. And I do not think it likes me anywhere near you.”

“It is not about liking.”

“Then it is about claiming.”

My breath hitched.

The Core pulsed again.

Kai stepped closer to me, and the veins under the floor brightened more. The resonance between my heartbeat and the Core grew louder. The chamber felt smaller. Closer. Watching.

Kai whispered, “Selene. It is trying to pull you.”

“I know.”

“Fight it.”

“I am,” I said, though the pulse beneath my skin felt like a hand wrapped around my spine.

A whisper drifted across the chamber. It sounded like a memory. Like breath. Like my own voice speaking from far away.

You belong here.

Kai stiffened. “Did you hear that?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“You do not belong here,” he said through clenched teeth. “You belong with me.”

The pulse stuttered once, as if the Core recoiled.

Then it surged back stronger.

The chamber dimmed. The silver veins brightened. The ground shuddered with a deep throb that rattled the stones beneath us.

Kai pulled me back gently. “Selene. We need to leave. Now.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Before it tries something else.”

We turned toward the tunnel we had fallen through.

Except it was no longer there.

The ceiling had sealed shut. No opening. No light. No way back to the world above.

Kai cursed softly. “Of course.”

The pulse answered him with another throb.

He reached for the wall. “We can climb. We have climbed worse. If I get a grip in the corner, I can lift you first.”

I placed my hand on the stone.

It was warm. Too warm.

The wall rippled like water, distorting under my fingers. The carvings shifted, reshaped, and formed a new image. A throne. A woman was seated upon it. Her eyes are silver and still. Her hands were resting on her knees. Her hair falling like light.

Me.

Kai stepped back. “Selene.”

“I am not doing this,” I whispered, but the stone disagreed.

The carved version of me blinked.

I stumbled away, heart pounding.

Kai caught my shoulders. “Look at me. Not at the wall. Look at me.”

I did.

His eyes were gold. Steady. Real. The only thing in this place that felt fully alive in the right way.

The Core pulsed again.

My knees buckled.

Kai held me up, voice tight with fear. “Selene. Fight it.”

I tried.

But the pulse grew stronger. Louder. It filled my bones until my ribs vibrated. The veins on my arms lit so bright the light seeped through his fingers.

Kai pulled me into his chest. “Stay with me. Do not disappear on me. Not here.”

The pulse faltered once. Hesitated.

Then doubled in strength.

The light beneath the floor flared, racing toward the center of the chamber. A circle formed there, wide and blinding, the same shape as the first fissure the throne had ever opened.

Kai held me tighter. “I am not letting you go.”

“I know,” I whispered.

The circle brightened until its glow spilled over us like rising steam.

Then the Core spoke.

Not with words.

With a sound.

A low, deep beat that was nothing like a heartbeat at all. Too big. Too slow. Too ancient. It shook the entire chamber.

Kai winced, one hand over his ears. “Selene. What is that?”

“I do not know.”

Another beat.

Then another.

The ground split open in the center of the chamber. White light shot upward, swirling like a storm. Shapes formed in the glow. Figures. Shadows.

I recognized them instantly.

The reflections.

Hundreds of them.

They moved like smoke, costumes of light and memory. Their faces were mine. Their eyes are silver. Their steps are in perfect rhythm.

Kai stepped in front of me again. “Do not even think about coming closer.”

The shadows did not listen.

They began to circle us, lining the outer edges of the chamber, their movements forming spirals of silver dust.

Kai gripped his blade. “Selene, tell me how to fight shadows.”

“You cannot.”

“Not encouraging.”

The shadows stopped circling.

They turned their heads toward me in perfect unison.

Then they spoke.

A single voice. Mine, multiplied a hundredfold.

We waited.

My chest tightened. “For what?”

Your choice.

The light behind them brightened. The pulse grew so loud I could feel my bones vibrate.

Kai whispered, “Selene. Whatever you do. Do not take a step toward them.”

I nodded.

But the pulse inside me answered louder.

A shadow stepped forward. My shadow. The First Queen’s echo. The version of me the throne wanted.

She lifted her hand toward me.

Not touching.

Only offering.

Kai’s hand found mine. “Selene.”

“I know.”

The shadow waited.

You belong to the Core.

“No,” I whispered. “I belong to myself.”

The shadow tilted her head as if amused.

Then she said something I did not expect.

Prove it.

The chamber trembled.

The pulse roared.

The light surged higher.

And the shadows began to change shape.

Not into wolves.

Into something older.

Something with wings.

Something the mountain remembered.

A dragon.

The Core was calling its first monster back to life.

Kai whispered, “Selene. Run.”

But there was nowhere left to run.