CHAPTER 84: CELESTE’S GAMBIT

Chapter 84: Celeste’s Gambit

The roar from beneath the mountain shook the air, but Celeste ignored it. She floated above them all, the Heart of Shadows pulsing in her chest like a cancerous star.

"I’m tired of fate deciding my worth," she said, her voice echoing with stolen power.

"Time to write my own story." She pressed both hands against the Heart, and dark energy burst outward.

Reality twisted around her like melted glass. "I reject the Moon Goddess’s plan," Celeste stated. "I reject every forecast that made me second place.

I choose to be Luna. I choose to be Alpha. I choose to be everything I was refused!" The Heart reacted to her will, but not the way she expected.

Instead of granting her wishes, it started consuming her. Her perfect skin cracked like dried earth, showing spaces between that held nothing but swirling darkness. "What’s happening to me?" she gasped, watching her hand become transparent.

"The Heart doesn’t grant wishes, you fool," Lyra struggled to her feet, her own beauty now shattered and showing the horror beneath. "It devours them.

Every wish, every dream, every piece of your soul - it feeds on all of it." Celeste tried to let go of the Heart, but her hands had already combined with the crystal.

"No! I can control this!" "Nobody controls the Heart," Lyra’s voice cracked with bitter laughing. "I thought I could. Look what it made me." The darkness spreading from Celeste grew wider, forming a vortex that pulled at everything around them.

Rocks rose into the air, spinning faster and faster until they dissolved into shadow. "It’s consuming the mountain," Marcus shouted over the rising wind. "If this spreads, it’ll eat everything for miles!" Talia grabbed her spell book, pages flipping furiously.

"There has to be something! Some way to stop this!" "There is," Lyra looked at Liana with eyes full of regret. "But it requires working together."

"You tried to kill us," Jace snarled, still fighting off shadow creatures that were now being pulled into the vortex. "And she’s about to destroy everything," Lyra pointed at Celeste, who was now more shadow than human.

"Choose your enemy wisely." Liana felt her wolf stir, sensing the truth in the witch’s words. "What do you need?" "My power is tied to the Heart through my own corruption," Lyra extended her hand. "Your royal bloodline is pure.

Together, we might be able to sever Celeste’s connection before she becomes something that can’t be stopped." The vortex grew larger, and the ancient roar from below grew louder. Whatever was sleeping under the mountain was waking up fast. "Do it," Liana grabbed Lyra’s hand, and immediately felt sick.

The witch’s magic was like touching poison, but she held on. "Now!" Lyra shouted. They combined their power, shooting a beam of silver and black energy toward Celeste.

But the moment it touched her, the beam split apart like water hitting a wall. "Too late," Celeste’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "I’m already beyond your reach." Her form stretched and twisted, becoming a living ghost with burning white eyes.

The Heart of Shadows had merged fully with her chest, its pulse now matching the rhythm of the magical vortex. "If I can’t rewrite fate," she said, her voice like breaking stone, "then I’ll destroy it entirely. No more predictions. No more picked ones. Just endless darkness where everyone is equal."

The vortex doubled in size, pulling trees and rocks into its hungry center. Even the spectral wolves were being pulled in, their ghostly forms dissolving into the void. "The containment barrier," Kael suddenly said. "Like we used to practice as children.

Remember?" Jace and Rowan looked at him with understanding dawning in their eyes. "We don’t have our Alpha strength," Rowan objected. "I do," Kael’s smile was sad but determined.

"What’s left of it, anyway." He stepped forward, pushing his hands together. Golden light flickered between his fingers - the last remains of his birthright power. "I call on the strength of my bloodline," he said solemnly.

"The power given to protect, not to rule." The golden light grew brighter, making a dome around the vortex. But it wasn’t strong enough.

Cracks appeared instantly as Celeste’s corruption pressed against it. "Help me," Kael gasped, blood running from his nose. "I can’t hold it alone." Jace moved to his left side, putting his hands on his brother’s shoulders. "My speed for your strength," he said, and silver light joined the gold.

Rowan took the right side. "My empathy for your courage." Blue light added to the shield, making it stronger. Together, the three brothers held back the tornado, but barely. Their faces were pale with effort, and Liana could see their leftover power draining away like water through a broken cup. "It’s not enough," Talia said, tears running down her face.

"They’re going to burn out." Inside the barrier, Celeste had become something that hurt to look at directly. Her shadow form towered thirty feet tall, and every movement made reality ripple around her.

"You cannot contain what you do not understand," her voice boomed. "I have become possibility itself. Every path not taken, every dream denied, every moment of regret - I am all of it!" The barrier cracked wider. Soon it would shatter completely.

That’s when the mountain answered the Heart’s call. The ancient roar became a howl that shook the sky itself. From cracks in the rocks, something began to emerge. Not a creature, but a presence so old and hungry that looking at it made thoughts stop working.

"The First Shadow," Lyra whispered in horror. "The original darkness that existed before creation. The Heart was its prison, not its power source." The thing rising from the mountain had no shape because it was the absence of shape.

It was hunger without form, need without substance, want without end. And Celeste had just set it free. "What have I done?" she screamed, her shadow form shrinking back as the First Shadow towered above even her.

The barrier around her shattered like glass. The vortex broke. And something far worse took its place. The First Shadow reached toward Celeste with tendrils of absolute void, ready to reclaim what had once held it.

But as it moved, its attention fell on something else entirely. It looked at Liana with interest that felt like ice water in her veins.

And it smiled with a mouth that had no teeth, in a face that wasn’t there.