CHAPTER 163: THE CULTISTS

They traveled in silence for two days, avoiding roads, burning their scents, cloaking themselves in old spells of misdirection. Kaelen led without speaking unless necessary. Lucas never let him walk too far ahead. Cassius never let him trail too far behind. And Athena... she said nothing at all.

Because the trees were whispering.

Because the closer they came, the colder the stars became.

Because something ahead was waiting for her.

On the third night, they reached it.

Not a ruin. Not a collapsed altar.

A living temple.

Hidden in a ravine of black stone and dying roots, it pulsed faintly beneath the moss—not from light, but from memory. The shape was circular, like a coiled serpent, its entrance marked by a sunken door etched in blood-symbols that hadn’t faded with time.

"It’s awake," Kaelen whispered. "It’s been waiting."

Cassius growled. "You first, then."

They entered one at a time.

Athena’s boots touched the stone—and the temperature dropped ten degrees. Every torch lit on its own. Dust flew upward, not down. The walls inhaled slowly... and exhaled her name.

"Athena..."

Lucas’s hand found hers. Not out of fear. But out of anchoring. "Do you feel that?"

"Not just magic," she said. "It’s recognition."

They walked in a single line, eyes wide. The temple was unlike anything they’d seen before. No halls—just concentric rings. Each room a test.

The first circle was filled with bones.

Wolf bones. Crushed, stacked, sharpened into runes.

Lucas stepped too close to one. It howled.

Cassius drew a blade. "They were sacrificed while shifted. This wasn’t war—it was ritualized slaughter."

"They weren’t trying to kill wolves," Athena said softly. "They were feeding something."

Kaelen glanced back. "This place... it wasn’t built by the Cult. It was given to them. From before. From whatever came before the gods."

The second circle was full of mirrors.

But none showed their reflection. Only memories.

Cassius froze as one mirror flickered to life—showing a younger version of himself covered in blood, hands shaking, standing over someone he once swore to protect.

Lucas’s reflection twisted into a boy crying out as fire consumed a forest.

Athena stepped into one—and saw herself, not divine, not silver-haired, but a mortal girl locked in chains of starlight, screaming.

The moment she reached out to touch it—

A voice echoed through the temple:

"You were not born. You were forged. And the blade remembers its furnace."

They moved quickly, now. The third circle pulsed with heartbeat rhythm. The walls wept oil. The air shimmered. Magic tried to confuse direction, twist footsteps back on themselves. Kaelen stumbled.

"Left," he said, breath tight. "That leads to the sanctum."

"How do you know?" Lucas demanded.

"I don’t," Kaelen snapped. "But something in my blood does."

They turned.

The corridor bent downward.

And opened into a room that screamed.

Not out loud—but in energy. It clawed at the spine. The walls were made of obsidian etched with circular glyphs, glowing faintly violet.

At the center of the room sat a sarcophagus.

Athena stepped forward.

The closer she got, the louder her heartbeat became—not panic. Not fear. Recognition.

"This is what they’ve been protecting," Cassius muttered.

Kaelen stepped back. "I wasn’t allowed this far before. They said only she could open it."

Athena raised her hand.

The glyphs shifted.

The sarcophagus clicked once—then opened.

Inside was not a corpse.

It was a woman.

Suspended in stasis. Veins silver. Hair like ink floating in still water.

And her face...

Lucas whispered, "Is that—"

Athena’s lips parted. "My sister."

Cassius turned sharply. "Athena—your sister is dead. You said she fell in the first fracture—"

"She did," Athena murmured. "Or I thought she did. But this..."

A scroll lay beside the woman’s heart.

Athena picked it up. Unfurled it.

The writing was not ink. It was blood. Old. Divine. Not wolf.

"The Moon split her power in two.

One to burn.

One to bind.

When the bearer bleeds at the temple’s breath,

The Second Flame will wake and decide."

Silence fell. Heavy. Frightening.

Kaelen stepped away. "This is why they wanted you. Not to kill you. Not even to control you. But to reunite you."

Lucas’s voice was dark. "Why? To awaken her?"

Cassius added, "Or to replace you?"

Athena looked down at her sister’s face, so familiar and so still. The resemblance was almost cruel.

She pressed a palm to the sarcophagus—and the glass cracked.

Not from force.

From fate.

The first blade struck stone with a hiss.

Athena turned just as the shadows moved—not like wolves, not like men, but like smoke with bones. Cloaked figures spilled from the corridor they’d entered, eyes glowing faint violet, tongues split like serpents.

"They were waiting," Lucas snarled, drawing his blade.

Cassius had already shifted—half-wolf, half-man, fangs bared, claws elongated. "We’ve been followed since day two."

Kaelen froze—then let out a low, vicious growl. "No. We’ve been herded."

Athena backed toward the sarcophagus, shielding the suspended figure inside. "They don’t want us dead. They want her."

And that’s when she saw it—etched faintly into the stone above the coffin: a blood-lock rune pulsing. It responded not to her... but to the Cult’s presence.

"They’re here to awaken her," Athena whispered.

Cassius didn’t wait.

With a roar, he charged forward, slamming into the first Cultist. Bone snapped. But the second moved like liquid shadow, vanishing and reappearing behind him with a curved sickle.

Lucas intercepted it, sword flashing, catching the blow mid-air with sparks and steel.

"Athena, the sarcophagus—" he shouted, barely dodging a second strike.

"I’m trying!" She held her palm to the glyph again. "It won’t seal!"

Magic exploded to her left. One of the Cultists raised a hand and ripped the air open with a sigil of decay—rot magic. Forbidden.

Cassius howled as a bolt grazed his ribs, burning through fur and skin alike.

Athena’s fury surged.

The divine fire inside her collided with the shadow Caelum had once cursed her with—sparking into something new. Her wings erupted from her back, not silver, not shadow, but starlight wrapped in darkness. She screamed—and the temple shook.

Three Cultists collapsed immediately.

Lucas gasped. "Your wings..."

"Keep them back!" she roared.