Chapter 44 The erasers and their allies
Steven smiled, that same smile that once made me believe I was too invisible to be loved.
"I'm asking for the kingdom to survive."
"Survival isn't the same as existence," I replied, feeling the ground vibrate beneath my feet. "Do you think the Erasers will stop when the hybrids disappear? They don't erase bodies. They erase history. And when there's nothing left to challenge the lie that sustains this throne..." I looked around, each alpha now tense. "They'll come after you too."
A murmur echoed through the room.
Kael stepped forward.
"I see emotions," he said calmly. "And what's welling up in you now, Steven, isn't protection. It's relief. You want her erased because her existence exposes what you did."
Steven paled.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know that when you rejected me," I said, staring at him. "You didn't expel me because I was weak. You expelled me because you already felt there was something in me that shouldn't exist... and you were afraid."
The silence was absolute.
Conrad squeezed my hand.
"This council will not decide under threat," he declared. "And much less on the basis of sacrifice."
Steven laughed, but there was something broken in his expression.
"So you chose war."
"No," I replied, feeling the symbol open like a living map in my chest. "We chose truth."
And, for the first time since I entered that room, I realized that some alphas were no longer looking at Steven. They were looking at me.
Not as an impurity.
But as a turning point.
The murmur turned into open tension.
The alpha of the Northern pack, a grizzled wolf with old scars, was the first to rise after my heavy silence.
"If what you say is true, Luna... then we're choosing between living on our knees or dying standing."
Other alphas began to shift in their chairs, restless. Their gaze no longer sought Steven—it sought answers in me.
Steven took a step back.
"You're letting fear rule!" he tried to argue. "These things haven't existed for generations. Hybrids are myths, abominations!"
"Then why is her symbol reacting to your hatred?" Kael questioned, pointing at me.
The entire room turned its gaze to my chest, where the golden light pulsed uncontrollably. There was no hiding it anymore.
I took a deep breath.
"I didn't ask to be born this way," I said, my voice trembling but firm. "But now that I exist, I will not accept you erasing others to protect me. If you hand over a single hybrid, you will not be saving the kingdom... you will be teaching the Erasers that fear is an open door."
The gray-haired alpha bowed his head in respect.
"So what do you propose, my queen?"
Conrad spoke before I needed to find courage.
"Unity," he declared. "Whoever still believes that this kingdom is worth more than their own conscience, stay by our side. Whoever chooses Steven's path... leave now."
The heavy door of the room creaked open in the background.
For long seconds, no one moved.
Then, a chair was dragged.
The gray-haired alpha walked towards us.
Then another.
And another.
Steven remained motionless, his face now contorted between anger and despair.
"You are making an irreversible mistake," he hissed.
I looked at him one last time.
"No, Steven," I replied softly. "You've already made your mistake."
The war had begun within that hall.
With choices.
The council chamber door slammed shut with a dull bang, separating two worlds that would never again touch in the same way.
The alphas who had risen remained by our side, forming an instinctive semicircle around me and Conrad. It wasn't reverence—it was protection.
Kael took a deep breath, his eyes closed for a moment longer than usual.
"The fear is still here," he murmured. "But now there's something new mixed with it. Hope. You've just lit a spark that won't be extinguished so easily."
Conrad released my hand only to address the alphas.
"Return to your packs. Reinforce the borders, silence rumors, and prepare your leaders for what's to come. Don't speak of hybrids as legends. Speak as allies who don't yet know they're alive."
They all nodded, one by one, before dispersing.
When the room emptied, I felt the true weight of what we had done fall upon my shoulders.
"You realize that now the hybrids won't hide anymore," I murmured.
Conrad touched my forehead with his.
"Neither will we."
Kael approached slowly.
"Steven won't stop," he said. "He doesn't seek to save the kingdom. He seeks to be remembered as the one who chose purity."
"And he will be remembered as the one who almost killed us," I replied.
Kael stared at me for a few seconds that were far too long.
"They already felt it," he stated. "The Erasers. This room was a cry to the other side of the Rift."
A shiver ran down my spine.
"Then we need to act before they do."
Kael opened an old map on the table.
"The Dead Moon Rift has opened for the first time in centuries," he explained. "And when that happens, the world tries to correct itself."
"Correct itself?" Conrad questioned. "Erase the mistake," Kael replied, looking at me. "And to the world, Maya... you are the most vivid mistake that ever existed."
The symbol on my chest pulsed like a newly awakened heart.
After the council dispersed, every corridor I walked seemed to contain echoes of decisions that hadn't even been made yet. Servants bowed respectfully, but there was something new in their eyes: uncertainty. The presence of the divided alphas, Steven's speech, the golden glow beneath my skin—none of it would go unnoticed for long.
Conrad walked beside me without letting go of my hand, as if he feared that if he did, I might disappear like the erased soldiers.
Kael guided us to the east tower, a place rarely used since the ancient wars. The door creaked open, revealing a forgotten observatory, where celestial maps covered the walls and ancient lunar reading instruments still rested on stone tables.
"This place was built to watch over the Moon," Kael explained. "Not the one we see in the sky, but the one that exists beyond what our eyes can reach."
I approached one of the maps. There were marks scratched in red ink, like scars crossing constellations.
"Here," Kael pointed. "Every time the Dead Moon Rift opened, there were records of disappearances, outbreaks of madness, the erasure of entire lineages."
I ran my fingers over the marks, feeling the symbol react, as if it recognized each of those wounds.
"So they always existed," I murmured.
The erasers.