Chapter 149 Sheila's Sister?
Adrian’s POV
The words hung in the air like smoke from the fireplace. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the elderly woman standing in the middle of the chamber, her white hair glowing softly in the firelight, that creepy smile still playing on her lips. My brain refused to catch up.
“What happened?” I demanded, voice low and sharp despite the confusion. “Are you still Emma? Did you play some kind of trick on me? I need to know what the hell is going on. Right now. Before I lose my fucking mind and tear you to shreds!”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she started walking lazily around the chamber, fingers trailing over the old wooden furniture, the heavy curtains, the edge of the four-poster bed.
Her steps were slow, almost amused, like she was taking inventory of a place she already half-owned.
“Calm down, King Adrian,” she said, voice raspy but steady. “All is fine. I understand your worry. There have always been rumors about my kind…dangerous, deceptive, shape-shifting monsters. But that’s all they are. Rumors.”
I crossed my arms, jaw tight. “That doesn’t explain why you were young one minute and old the next. One second you’re the girl from the plane, the next you look like you’ve lived through centuries.”
She paused by the window, glancing out at the snow-covered mountains before turning back to me with a small shrug.
“Oh. I have indeed lived through centuries and this is my true form. This is how I was before the purge that wiped out my clan. I barely managed to escape. I put on that younger form to survive after I found myself in a strange world filled with humans,” she said and paused briefly.
Then she continued. “I tried blending in, staying hidden. But I must have lost the essence of an Oden after all these years. I couldn't find my way back home in that form. That’s why I needed your mate’s blood to awaken me.”
I stared at her, frustration boiling hotter. “I don’t understand.”
She exhaled slowly, the sound tired, and sank into the nearest armchair like her old bones suddenly weighed a ton.
“I used up all my Oden essence to teleport during the massacre and hide in the form you met. Along the line, I must have… forgotten who I really was or the way back home. That’s why I couldn’t come back. I moved from one human town to another as an orphan because I had no family. When your hand touched the symbol on my back, it reminded me who I am. It awakened what was left of my essence. But I still needed the blood…your mate’s blood…to awaken fully.”
I couldn't help myself. I just had to ask. “But why her blood? Why my mate’s blood?”
“Because she's another…living in the body of another…” Was all she replied and that confirmed my theories about the princess.
She's truly Kira Summers. And not Arabella Ravyrn.
I ran a hand through my hair and let out a long exhale, trying to process the flood of information. It felt like too much, too fast. “That’s…a lot to take in. Do you remember what happened to your clan?”
Her face changed in an instant. The lazy amusement vanished. Fury flashed in her violet eyes, raw and blazing, twisting her wrinkled features into something dark and dangerous. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
“How can I forget?”
The fury on her face didn’t fade. Instead, it deepened, turning her violet eyes into twin flames as she sank deeper into the armchair.
The fire crackled behind her, casting long shadows across the old stone walls. Thomas and James stayed silent, but I could feel the tension rolling off them in waves. I needed answers, and I needed them now.
“Tell me about the purge that cleared your people,” I said quietly. “We never really got the real story behind it. What really happened to your clan?”
The elderly woman straightened a little, her white hair catching the firelight. She looked at each of us in turn, then spoke with quiet dignity.
“Before I begin…my true name is Elise. Not Emma. Emma was only a mask I wore to navigate the human world.”
She paused, letting the name settle in the room, then continued.
“The purge happened during our most sacred ritual…the Soul Balancing Rite. It occurs only once every five hundred years. We gather in the Heart Temple, deep in the hidden valleys where no outsider had ever stepped. For that ritual, every Oden willingly lets her soul leave her body. Our physical forms remain in a perfect circle, breathing but empty, while our souls rise together to weave and strengthen the invisible threads that keep the realm in balance…light and dark, life and death, magic and nature. It is the only time we are truly vulnerable. The only time we can be killed.”
She paused to exhale, rocking slightly on the chair.
“We never saw the ambush coming…if we did, the person would have perished before making it close to our cave. Someone who knew our exact weakness had infiltrated us. They struck the precise moment our souls had left…when we were defenseless, floating between realms. Black magic poured in like poison, dark and ancient, wrapping around our empty bodies and snuffing out every soul before it could return. One by one, my sisters fell. Silent. Instant. No screams, no fight. Just… gone.”
“I am alive because I was chosen that year to be the Incense Bearer. The Bearer does not enter the circle. She remains outside, tending the sacred braziers, keeping the purifying smoke alive. Once the rite ends, it is her duty to walk among the bodies with the incense and call every soul back home. The attacker did not know this, or simply missed me in the chaos.”
“So you saw who it was?” I asked, but she ignored my interruption and continued.
“I watched it all from the shadows. I wanted to fight…I wanted to tear the intruder apart…but I was alone. One Oden against black magic that strong? It would have been suicide. If I died too, our entire clan would be lost forever, with no one left to remember, no one left to seek justice. So I teleported. I fled with the last scraps of my essence, forcing myself into a younger form just to survive. I hid among mortals, moving from town to town as an orphan, slowly forgetting who I truly was… until I perceived her…your mate. Somehow, her scent drew me to the woods where you found me.”
Thomas let out a low, dangerous growl, his fists clenched. “It’s all Morgana. That evil witch. She’s the one who did this. No one else in the entire realm has black magic that strong.”
Elise’s head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing. “Can we stop calling her that? There is no such thing as Morgana.”
I stepped forward, cutting in before Thomas could argue.
“We are aware there might not be a ‘Morgana.’ But who we are referring to as Morgana is the highest priestess Sheila’s half-sister. She was locked away for centuries but somehow got out and has been terrorizing packs. Sheila went on some personal mission, and now it seems her half-sister has escaped.”
Elise stared at me for a beat, then threw her head back and laughed…a dry, bitter sound that echoed off the chamber walls.
“And who told you all that Sheila had a half sister?”
The laughter died slowly, leaving only heavy silence. I felt my stomach drop, confusion crashing over me like a cold wave.
What the hell is going on?
If the priestess Sheila doesn't have a sister...then who the hell has been tormenting the realm?