bChapter /bb221 /b

    April POV

    ?38%

    The warlock doesn’t wait, he turns and walks away, moving through the courtyard. I watch as he begins to walk, slow and certain, and he heads to the treeline where the Hollow waits like a held breath. Why is he going there? Eryx isn’t there, that’s not going to help Eryx right now.

    His coat pulls the morning wind with it, and the hem whispers over the stone while every guard in sight steps back as if instinct is telling them not to

    touch him or go near.

    Xander moves quickly, and cuts across the yard, he catches up in two long strides. “Where are you going.”

    The warlock doesn’t even grace him with a look, his gaze stays fixed forward. “To the source.”

    To the source? Not to Eryx? My feet move before my mind even agrees to, and I follow them both. My pulse is loud in my ears. I ce a hand on my stomach like that will keep the world from tilting under me. “What about Eryx,” I ask, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice. “You said you’d help him. You said you would help, so why not go to Eryx?”

    The warlock’s mouth tilts, not quite a smile. The expression makes the hair lift on my arms. “I will.”

    He will? He says that like it’s a good and bad thing, like he’s going to help but also burn him at the same time.

    “Then why the Hollow,” Xander demands. “You said this ce chokes you. Why not go to Eryx and fix it that way?”

    “I never lied, it does,” the warlock says, and finally he stops. He turns in a single smooth motion that makes his coat re. Those strange eyes slide over both of us, bright and unreadable. “And that is why I will not step deeper until you two understand what help means. To free him, I have to finish what was started. I have to make sure she is entirely inside him.”

    The ground goes out from under me so fast I sway. “No.” The word tears itself out of my throat. Is he serious? That’s… No, he can’t do that, why would he want to do that? “You can’t put her in him fully, you can’t, she will break him.”

    I hear Xander’s boot hit the stone as he nts himself between us. His voice drops low, the way wolves do when violence is closing in around them. “You will exin yourself, now.”

    The warlock doesn’t even flinch at Xander, which is strange. A lot of people fear him. A lot of people avoid even making him angry because of how brutal

    he can be..

    “Someon in your pack let her free,” he says, patient as a teacher who has repeated a lesson through generations. “Then, you clearly tried to shield the girl and made your sons a vessel. You wolves are stubborn. iYou /ithink iyou /iare the dam and the river will simply change course if you stand still long enough. That is not how old things work.”

    He tuts andughs, even the witches failed. “They put a shield on her, buried her iso /ito speak. If I try to shield her again, if I divide the Queen’s essence between hosts or force it into the soil, she will slip the and learn from it. She will grow stronger where I can’t see and one night you will wake when the trees begin to sing in a tongue that is not for wolves. If she is wholly inside your son, I can burn her from the inside out. When I am finished, she will

    not return.”

    “But-“Xander starts.

    “No buts. The witches tried and failed. If I bury her and shield her how long will it be before someone elses stumbles and releases her again? It could be a week, it could be thousands of years, this way, she can never return. So, I will burn her from the inside out.”

    My mouth has gone dry. “What does that mean for Eryx” I hate that my voice is a whisper. I hate that I already know the answer will be cruel. If she’s inside him entirely, then what?

    “If your mate is as strong as I think he is, he will live,i” /ithe warlock says. “If he gives in to herb, /bsay goodbye.”

    I stop breathing. Xander curses softly, not at the warlock, not even at fate. It is the sound a father makes when the road gives him only narrow bridges.

    There has to be another way, we can’t do it this way. I would rather take the chance of her getting free again than letting Eryx burn with her.

    09:39 Sun, 31 Aug W

    38%

    +33

    “You will let me do what needs to be done,” the warlock adds, and the way he says it makes it sound less like an instruction and more like the only path that ever existed. He’s not asking, he’s not giving us a chance. He’s demanding that he does this.

    The wind slips through the trees, and along the edge of the Hollow.

    “Let him.” Xander looks at me, and I want to fight this, but I nod, and ept this is the way forward.

    As we move closer, the forest shivers like it hears us. I press my palm hard to my belly and force words past the ache in my chest. “How do you know,” I ask. “How do you know she is a girl. How do you know anything about my baby. You said she is the future. What does that even mean.” How can he know these things? I don’t even know them.

    He looks at me, and this time he truly smiles. It is not kind. It is not cruel either. It is the expression of a man who has been waiting to watch a truth find its mouth. “You do not know, do you.”

    Know what? I didn’t even know the baby was a girl. I try to speak, but I can’t. The cold air seems to lift and sink like a tide of dread and relief that’s still

    not decided which shore to choose.

    “Your child isn’t a wolf, dear,” he says. “She’s not a witch either, nor is she a fae, nor a vampire.”

    A cold dread sinks into me, that can’t be right, how can she not be? “She’s human?” I ask, quietly. How can she be human?

    “No.” hè answers, and that single word just tears everything apart. What is she, what he’s saying is she’s nothing, how can that be?

    “She is the ultimate being, and she has worn many names so the world would not fall to its knees every time it spoke of her. She is the Morrayne. She is the First mee again. She is the All–Mother returning. She ising home to bind what we have all broken and bring the worlds together once more.”

    Everyone goes quiet and stops, and I swear down I can hear my own heartbeat, I’m sure I can hear everyones. How is that possible?

    The guards look at one another and then down, as if meeting the warlock’s eyes might pull the truth into them and set them alight. Xander’s jaw locks hard enough to crack his teeth. I can’t move. My hand has ttened against my stomach like I expect heat to bloom there. For a heartbeat it does. It is bnot /bpainful. It is not gentle either. It is likeying your palm against a hearth that is about to catch.

    “She can’t be that,” I whisper. “She’s a baby, I’m just me, how did I…”

    “You are the door,” the warlock says, and somehow the words don’t belittle. They crown. He says it like I’m something amazing, something powerful and good. “She chose you because doors are made of living wood and take carving and time. She will be born where the world believes it can’t hold more light. That is how bnce keeps itself.”

    Xander finds his voice first. “If you are right,” he says, and the words drip with the old caution that has kept us alive, “then there is more at risk here than my son. There will be more eyes on my pack than I can count. There will be gods listening to everything around us.”

    I get that, Serafine was special, Eryx as well. They are unique and rare, because they are Threadborns, and now my child….

    “They have always listened,” the warlock says. “Now they will remember. You have a choice, Alpha. Stand with everything that is true and happening, or watch as others break it all down?

    “I will stand, Vander says, and there is so much strength in it. “But do not think for a moment that means I hand my son to the fire without ensuring he

    wille back.”

    “You will hand him to me, the warlock says, “becquse there is no one else in this world who knows how to do this and leave your world standing. Bring him to me, bring him the way you have everything silencing him. I will need you to loosen the wards that silence her so she can move toward what calls her. I will draw her. I will keep her busy so that your son can find his own voice again.”

    “You are ying at certainty,” Xander says.

    “I am speaking it,” the warlock replies. “You brought me because you had to. Let me be what you wanted.”