Lisa’s POV 

Darkness swallowed me whole. Then, there were so many colors. 

It started at my feet. Ribbons of light crawled up my legs. They were thin and bright and they smelled like iron and wet earth. The colors moved in circles. Purple became blue. Blue became red. Red became a ring 

of bright and sharp silver. 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. My mouth made a sound that felt like nothing. My hands felt far away. 

I could see my fingers and yet, they were not solid. They were made of mist. 

“Sierra,” I thought and my wolf answered like a bell. 

I am here, she said. 

The tunnel of color spun faster. The sound around me was a chorus of whispers. Voices braided into one 

another. Some voices were familiar. Some were centuries old. Every sound had a weight. Time felt like 

rain sliding down glass. 

Fenric stood beside me. He looked the same as before but something was not quite right. He was 

glowing. He, too, was not solid. He was a shape in the light. His smile was cold. 

“What is this?” I asked. My voice was a whisper. 

“This is the past,” he said softly. “Not a dream. Not your safe little memory. The past itself. And you are…” he paused, his smile widening “….a guest.” 

The colors bent around us and then spat us out. 

I found my feet on stone. 

The world smelled of smoke and tallow. Torches burned in iron sconces. The altar rose before me. It was 

not black and ruined. It was clean and fierce. The stone shone like wet slate. The demon statue behind it was not old and broken. It was carved fine. Horns swept back from its brow. It looked alive, as if a priest could have spoken to it on any night and heard an answer. 

But the thing that broke me was not the altar. 

It was Althea. 

She was young. She was beautiful in the way that heartbreak is beautiful. Her dress was white. It was soaked in blood. Dark red and slow, like a pool in the pale cloth. Her hair was loose. Her cheek had a cut. She dragged her breath like a bellows. She was a living thing and she was in pain. 

Men in dark cloaks pushed her forward. They were efficient and ruthless. They did not look at her face. They were like machines. A young Fenric stood among them. He had smooth skin and I could see the fierce hunger in his eyes. He was less old than the man I knew. He moved quickly. 

Phaphim Fit 

My heart became a fist in my throat. 

I pulled toward them. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tackle Fenric. I wanted to tear the men from her 

shoulders and run. It was a simple wish and it was impossible. My feet slid through the stone. I felt like I 

stood behind a sheet of glass. I could see, I could sob, but I could not touch. 

Fenric laid a hand on Althea’s arm. “Lay her on the altar,” he said, his voice as calm as dusk. 

They forced her down. Her hands clawed at the stone. She tried to lift her head…..to cry out. Blood slicked 

her fingers. One of the warlocks struck her across the face to make her still. 

“Quiet,” the warlock warned. His voice had no warmth. 

Althea cried, “Aaron will come. Aaron will not leave me.” 

Her words were thin like a thread stretched across a void. The man who struck her laughed like a maniac. 

Fenric turned his face toward the moon. It hung full and bright and white. The altar’s edge shone with reflected light. He raised his hand and the air hummed. He called the old words then: 

“By bone and root….By night and tide….By blood that binds and blood that bides, I call the pact…. I call the name…. By sacrifice, we break the chain.” 

His chant was poetry and poison at once. Each syllable seemed to peel at the world. The men in the shadows repeated after him. The chant grew. The statue’s mouth seemed to open a fraction, like it was listening. 

My chest hurt so badly I thought it would split. 

I pressed my hands to my eyes. I could not watch. The sight of my mother on that stone, so small and 

stolen, made my stomach twist. 

“You will watch,” the Fenric beside me said. He smiled the smile he always used when he wanted to harm 

1. me. “You cannot change what is done. It is a memory. A record. It will not be altered by your screams.” 

“Stop,” I cried to him. “You can stop this. You can 

He shook his head and it was a movement full of boredom. “No.” His voice was soft. “I cannot change the past. But I can bring you into it. I can make you live it. You will learn what you need to know.” 

I had never thought that being dragged into the past would be like this. I had not known how it would be to watch’a person you loved die. I had not known how violent the feeling would be. How unbearable it was. 

Fenric continued to chant. He lifted a gleaming blade. The metal shone brightly in the moonlight. 

I covered my eyes with my hands. My fingers trembled. “No,” I whispered. “Please. Don’t…” 

“Peel your hands away and look,” the Fenric beside me said. “Watch. Your mother fell so perfectly. There is a beauty to it. See how pale her throat looks under the moon.” 

216 

My fingers sank into my palms until stars danced. I could not move them. A small voice in the back of my head, Sierra, said two words and they were like knives. 

Open them. 

I forced my lids apart. 

Fenric raised the blade. 

Then, there was an unexpected shout. 

“Stop!” 

The word broke like glass. 

From the treeline came a shout so fierce it made the moon blink. A man’s voice, strong and full of raw 

anger, bellowed Fenric’s name. 

It was Aaron. 

He stormed into the clearing with a small group. He was a man shaped by grief and outrage. His hair was 

wild. His eyes were furious. He looked at Althea and his face went soft like dawn. He reached for her and 

then he saw the men around her. He turned and roared at Fenric. 

“Release her,” he shouted. “Release her now, Fenric. Let her go and I will not fight against you. I will walk 

away.” 

Fenric’s lips curved like a blade. “You are weak,” he said. “You are soft. You who hide behind bloodless 

morals. You will not stop what must be done.” 

Aaron lunged. He moved like a storm. I wanted to leap forward. I wanted to tear Fenric down with my own hands. But my feet were not real. I could only watch as Aaron clipped a man and drove forward. Fenric did not fight like a simple man. He raised his palm, and a shock of cold light burst from it. 

The force hit Aaron in the chest. He flew back with the sound of a tree cracking. His body hit the earth 

hard. The men behind him faltered but then they fought. 

It became a war. It was quick and loud and heartless. Wolves and warriors collided with dark figures. The 

sky filled with the sound of clashing metal. Aaron’s men fought bravely. Fenric’s men moved like tide and 

shadow. 

Aaron broke through. He stumbled to where Althea lay and reached for her. He held her face in his hands. 

He swore something in a low voice. For a breath there was hope. 

Then a bright hand, Fenric’s, pushed at him and he toppled like a felled oak. He was no match for a 

warlock. The world seemed to slow. Aaron’s face was a mask of red and white. He tried to stand but he 

could not. 

He looked at Althea, at the moon and at the edge of the altar. His lips moved. He tried to say something to her but then he was gone. 

4 Chap 121 

He landed hard on the stone and did not move again. 

Althea’s chest heaved once. Then, no more. 

The blade hovered above her throat. Fenric’s men faltered. They knew that their mission had not been 

complete. The moon watched and the world held its breath. 

Fenric looked furious and afraid. He stared at the altar where the blood pooled and hissed. “No,” he 

whispered. “No. This is wrong. The timing…” He cursed. He slammed his fist against the air. 

The ritual needed the moment to be unbroken. Aaron’s interruption had ruined everything. Althea’s blood 

soaked the stone but the pact was not sealed in the way he required. She was dead before he could 

complete the ritual. He had thought he commanded fate. He had not expected Aaron to come running like 

a storm. 

He stepped back and his jaw worked. Around him his men started to argue. Their voices overlapped like 

knives. Fenric’s face changed. He looked defeated. 

The Fenric at my side, him who watched, not the bright young one, said in a voice that made my teeth 

ache, “I failed because I looked away. I should have been at the altar, not fighting like a common soldier. I should have guarded the spell.” 

“This was not the end,” he said. “It was a lesson. It failed because of my stupidity. It failed because of chance. It will not fail again.” 

“You could have stopped this,” I said. I reached out. My hand slid through him like wind. He did not flinch. 

“No, I could not change it. The past is done. But I can bring you into it. Your blood can finish what my hands could not then. You, daughter of Althea, will do what she could not. You will lay your blood on the 

stone and the curse will end.” 

I felt the room tilt. 

“You are a coward,” I said. Tears spilled from my face and they were hot and real. “You use ghosts to feed your hunger.” 

He smiled. “I am a necessary coward,” he said. “I attend to power when others waste themselves in heroics. And I do not make the same mistake twice.” 

He stepped back a little. “I have already arranged what must be done. Your body in the present is ready. Someone else walks in your skin. She will bring your limbs closer to me. She will do my bidding. You will be in the past until your destiny breaks you. And when I am done, I will become the most powerful 

warlock.” 

A terrible calm came over him. He lifted his head to the moon and seemed to drink the light. 

“You cannot keep me here,” I said. “Someone will notice. Morana will know. Kael will see. Rylan….” 

“Morana will feel nothing. My mirror lays over her senses. Kael and Rylan will fight phantoms and bleed. They will tear the air for nothing. By the time she finds you missing, the hour will have passed. You will be 

1/6 

4 Chap 121 

gone. You will be mine.” 

He turned. He walked away and as he did, his form thinned. He smiled once without turning back.” 

Goodbye, daughter. We will never meet again.” 

Then he was not there. 

$75 Painte 

I stood in the silent past. The moon poured over Althea’s white dress, and the altar drank and drank the 

red. The men argued in the distance. The warlocks bent and lowered their eyes. The place smelled of iron 

and old promises. 

Sierra spoke inside me. Breathe. Don’t panic. We will find a way to return back to the present. 

“He said that we would stay here forever,” I whispered. “He said that no one will be able to save us.” 

Sierra’s voice was a growl. We will be heard. I do not know how yet. But we will. 

I looked one last time at Althea’s still face. I felt the ache of a thousand moons. I felt the hollow of a 

daughter who had been born just to grieve. 

The past did not soften. It had a cruelty of stone. 

I tried to call out to the present. I tried to throw my voice like a spear across time. My scream was thin. It 

fell unheard. 

Fenric’s parting words burned like a lie inside me. He had made the net and thrown me in it. He had said my allies would fight ghosts and not find me. He had said Morana would be blind. 

I would not believe him yet. 

“Listen,” Sierra said. “Your present body is not gone yet. Your friends can find cracks if they look. If they 

tear the mirror, they can break the spell. If Morana remembers how blood and ash bend, if Kael stops fighting air and trusts his nose…” 

“I know,” I said. I did not know but I nodded. 

The clearing felt cold. My breath fogged the air though my body did not warm it. The moon watched and 

the demon statue’s eyes glinted like chips of night. 

The last thing I saw before the colors lifted me again was Fenric’s back disappearing into the dark trees, 

as if he walked out of a painting. His shoulders were calm. He had set traps inside traps. 

I do not know how long I stood in that still place. Minutes? Hours? Time was a net tied in knots. But I made a small promise, to myself and to my mother who lay broken on that altar. 

You will not have me twice, I said into the dark. I would rage. I would claw. I would find the seam of his mirror and tear it open. 

Sierra circled inside me fiercely. We will find a way, she promised. We always do. 

The colors returned and the tunnel started again. The world folded like paper. The past did not want to let 

5/6 

Chimpites 121 

me go. It wanted me to remember. It wanted me to learn. 

1425 Points 

Fenric had taken me to the worst thing I could imagine. He had left me inside it. He had believed that I would settle there…that I was weak. 

I will not. 

I will find a way to get out of here. 

Comments