Chapter 45 Made of energy
"Yes," Kael replied. "But they only emerge when something threatens the pattern that sustains the world."
Conrad frowned.
"And you are that threat."
"Or the correction," I added softly.
Kael tilted his head slightly.
"You didn't come to destroy the system," he said. "You came to remind it of what it forgot."
The wind blew through the tall windows, making the maps rustle like living pages. For a moment, I had the feeling that it wasn't just me who was awakening.
The kingdom itself was beginning to remember.
The wind didn't cease. It gathered.
The tall windows of the observatory vibrated, and the red marks on the maps began to move slowly, like veins rekindling beneath dead skin. My chest burned in response, not as pain—as a call.
"They're coming," Kael murmured, his voice too low to be heard. "Not physically yet... but the veil is thinning."
Conrad reflexively stepped in front of me.
"Tell me what we need to do."
Kael walked to an ancient stone astrolabe, covered in almost faded runes.
"There's a reading that can only be done by those who carry the Link," he said, looking at me. "It won't hurt you... but it will show you something you might not want to see."
I swallowed hard.
"I no longer have that luxury."
I placed my hand on the center of the instrument. The instant I touched it, the entire room seemed to lose depth. The walls receded, the ceiling became an impossible sky, and the symbol beneath my skin projected outward from me like a living constellation.
I saw faces.
Children who never grew up. Alphas whose names had been erased from the books. Women marked with the same glow that now burned within me.
"They were here," I whispered. "All of them." Kael nodded.
"And you are what remains of their collective memory."
Conrad was breathing heavily.
"So it's not just about hybrids."
"No," I replied, feeling tears welling up. "It's about everything that was decided without the right to exist."
The light dimmed, and the room slowly returned to normal. My legs gave way, but Conrad caught me before I fell.
Kael approached, more serious than ever.
"You are not the bearer of a mistake, Maya," he said. "You are the guardian of a story the world tried to kill."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy.
It was sacred.
The sacredness didn't last.
A deep sound echoed through the castle, as if the very stone had groaned. The blue flames of the torches went out at once, and for a brief moment we were plunged into complete darkness.
Then, the cold.
It wasn't coming from the wind—it was coming from within the bones.
Kael was the first to move.
"They've crossed over," he said, his voice tense. "Not all of them... but one has already found a way through."
Conrad pulled my cloak around me.
"Where?"
Kael closed his eyes for a second, as if listening to something that wasn't sound.
"They're going to the west side, where their quarters are."
My heart raced.
"The books and the jewels," I murmured. "They're full of memories and created by hybrids."
"And memories are exactly what they hunt," Kael replied.
We ran.
The corridors seemed to stretch, as if the castle were trying to slow us down. When we reached the stone staircase leading to the room, I felt the symbol pulse violently enough to almost knock me over.
There was something down there that recognized me.
We descended into the darkness, guided only by the faint glow that now escaped from my own skin.
The air grew heavy, dense, thick with something reminiscent of wet ashes.
Then we saw it.
A silhouette floated among the ancient tombs, its body made of interwoven veils of shadow. It had no defined form, but distorted the space around it like an open wound.
The Eraser.
Before Conrad could move forward, he froze.
Not out of fear.
But because something began to disappear.
The necklace dissolved before our eyes, as if it had never existed.
"No," I whispered, feeling panic wash over me. "You won't take anyone else."
The symbol on my chest exploded in golden light.
And, for the first time, I didn't expect to be chosen by the Moon.
I chose to fight.
The light emanated from me in gentle waves, not like a weapon, but like a breath of existence. The extinguished necklace trembled and, one by one, began to return, coming back into existence as if invisible hands were carving them anew.
The Eraser recoiled.
Not like one who fears... but like one who encounters something impossible.
"You cannot restore what has been corrected," the voice echoed inside my head.
"I am not correcting," I replied in thought. "I am returning."
It stirred, its shadows distorting with silent anger. Around it, other tombstones began to vibrate, releasing fragments of memories I didn't even know the castle held—laughter, whispered promises, names forgotten for centuries.
Conrad stood beside me, sword in hand, though we both knew no metal could reach that.
"Kael!" he shouted. "Say you have something besides praying."
Kael knelt, his eyes closed, his hands on the cold floor.
"I'm holding the rift open," he said through gritted teeth. "But this is draining you, Maya. It wasn't made for just one body."
I felt my legs weaken. The gold flickered, like a flame in a strong wind.
The Eraser advanced.
When it touched me, there was no pain.
There was oblivion.
For a second, I didn't remember who I was.
I didn't remember Conrad.
I didn't remember my name.
I felt that strange energy, the same energy present inside the eraser, growing within me. It seemed to want to course through my entire body, like a vital energy.
My thoughts were lost, and I could only concentrate on absorbing.
I wanted to absorb all that energy.
Then a warm hand held mine.
"Look at me," Conrad's voice pierced the void. "You are Maya. My queen. My life. You exist."
The gold returned like an explosion of memory.
I screamed.
And the scream didn't come from my throat—it came from the Rift.
The ground cracked beneath the Eraser, revealing the same skyless nothingness I already knew. The creature was pulled back, trying to cling to the world, but the shadows began to dissolve like dust in the sun.
Before disappearing, it whispered inside my mind.
"You are not the exception. You are the flaw."
And then nothing remained.
Only silence.
And I couldn't see anything anymore.