Chapter 20
Dahlia’s POV
The root-hand reached the top of the ledge. It started to wrap its fingers around Axel’s waist.
Axel blinked. The white glow in his eyes flickered. He looked at the giant hand, then at me. For the first time, I saw the fear come back into his face.
“Mommy!” he cried out, his voice sounded small and terrified.
“Jump, Axel!” Nate roared.
Axel didn’t think. He lunged away from the pillar, throwing himself toward the gap. He was mid-air, his little arms reaching out, when the root-hand snapped shut. It caught his ankle.
Axel let out a scream of pure pain. He was hanging over the black pit, the giant hand pulling him down.
“NO!” I lunged forward, reaching through the hole I’d made in the fire. My sleeve caught fire, but I didn’t feel it. I grabbed Axel’s hand.
I was leaning over the abyss, my boots slipping on the glass floor. I could feel the weight of the mountain pulling on my son. It felt like I was trying to hold onto a literal ton of rock.
“Nate! Help me!” I sobbed.
Nate was there in a heartbeat. He grabbed my waist, anchoring me to the floor. He was pulling on me, and I was pulling on Axel. It was a tug-of-war for my son’s life.
“Let him go!” Martha’s voice boomed from above. “The mountain will take you all p>
“Then let it!” I screamed back.
Suddenly, the pressure changed. The ground just tilted. I heard a loud crack from below, like a bone breaking. The root-hand jerked, and for a second, the grip on Axel’s ankle loosened.
I pulled with everything I had. My muscles felt like they were going to tear off the bone. With one final, desperate heave, Axel popped free.
We fell backward, the three of us tumbling onto the hard floor just as the fire barrier exploded.
The white pillar in the center of the room shattered into a million pieces. The light went out, plunging us into total darkness.
“Everyone stay still!” I yelled, pulling Axel into my chest. He was shaking, sobbing into my neck. I could feel his ankle, it felt hot and swollen, definitely broken.
The silence came back, but it wasn’t a good silence. It was the silence of a building about to fall.
“Aidan? Ariana?” I called out into the dark.
“We’re here, Mom,” Aidan’s voice came from the left. He sounded exhausted, like he could barely keep his eyes open.
“Nate p>
A hand touched my shoulder. It was rough and warm. “I’m here, Dahlia. I’ve got you. I’ve got all of you p>
I let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding for six years. We were together. We were alive.
But then, a new sound started. It wasn’t the mountain. It was footsteps. Slow, heavy footsteps clicking on the glass floor. And then, a match was struck.
The small light revealed Martha standing a few feet away. But she wasn’t alone. The grey shadow-men were standing behind her, dozens of them. And in her hand, she wasn’t holding a lantern anymore. She was holding a heavy stone bowl filled with that black, oily liquid.
“You saved the boy,” she said, her voice sounding hollow and strange. “But you broke the Heart. Now, there is nothing to keep the shadows in the basement p>
She tilted the bowl. The black liquid started to pour out, hitting the floor and spreading fast.
“Nate,” I whispered, holding Axel tighter. “The door is behind us, right p>
“It’s blocked,” Nate said, his voice dropping low. I could hear him shifting, his bones clicking into place. “Dahlia, get behind me p>
I looked at the black oil. It wasn’t just spreading anymore. It was rising up, taking shapes. They looked like people, the people who had died on this mountain over the years. They were silent, their eyes empty holes of darkness.
And then, I felt a tug on my skirt.
I looked down. Axel was looking at the black liquid. His eyes weren’t white anymore. They were a deep, dark purple.
“Mommy,” he said, his voice flat. “They aren’t shadows. They’re the pack p>
I didn’t understand what he meant until the first figure stepped into the light. It wasn’t a monster. It was a wolf, a brown and white wolf with a familiar collar.
It was the pack guard who had disappeared three days ago. He was dead, his skin was grey and cold, but he was walking. He was a puppet for the black rot.
And then I saw the next one.
It was a woman in a ruined gold dress. Her throat was torn open, and her eyes were gone.
Gina.
She was back. And she wasn’t alone. Every wolf who had ever died for this pact was coming for the kids.
Suddenly, they all disappeared. It was both shocking and a bit of a relief.
I scrambled across the dirt, as my lungs screamed for air that didn’t taste like ground-up rock and death. One second the world was a nightmare of black oil and ghost-wolves, and the next, I was falling through a gap in the stone and hitting the forest floor.
The sky was a deep, bruised purple. It was so quiet that it hurt my ears.
“Axel? Aidan? Ariana?” I choked out, my hands clawing at the pine needles. I couldn’t see them. Everything was blurry from the dust and the tears stinging my eyes. “Answer me p>
“I’m here, Mom p>
Aidan’s voice was small and raspy. He crawled out from behind a fallen log, dragging Ariana with him. They looked like they had been dipped in gray soot. Their eyes were wide, and they were shaking so hard I could hear their teeth clicking, but they were alive, that’s what really mattered.
Then I saw Axel. He was sitting perfectly still a few feet away, staring back at the mountain. The massive stone entrance of the pack house was gone, buried under a pile of jagged boulders and cracked trees. The mountain had literally closed its mouth.
I grabbed all three of them, pulling them into my lap in one big, messy heap. I buried my face in Axel’s hair, sobbing into his neck. He was cold, and he didn’t hug me back at first. He just kept staring at the rocks.
“It’s over,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if I was lying. “We’re out. We’re safe p>
A heavy shadow fell over us. I flinched, my hand reaching for a rock, until I saw the boots. Nate was standing there, or at least what was left of him. His shirt was gone, his chest was covered in deep red scratches and black bruises, and he was leaning heavily against a cedar tree. He looked like he’d aged twenty years in a single night.
He didn’t say anything. He just sank to his knees in front of us and put his forehead against mine. I could feel his heat, but I could also feel him trembling. For a long time, the only sound was our breathing and the wind whistling through the trees.
“The pack house,” Nate finally said, his voice sounding like he’d swallowed sand. “It’s gone, Dahlia. The Elders… the records… everything p>
“I don’t care about the house, Nate,” I said, pulling the kids closer. “I care about them. We’re leaving. We’re going as far away from this mountain as we can get p>
Nate looked up at the moon, then back at Axel. “I don’t think it’s that easy. Look at his hands p>
I pulled back to look at Axel. My heart nearly stopped.
The silver fur was gone, but his skin wasn’t normal. There were faint, shimmering lines running under the surface of his palms, like glowing spiderwebs. They pulsed with a soft, white light every time he took a breath.
“It’s the Heart,” Axel whispered, his eyes finally moving to meet mine. “It didn’t want to let me go, so it gave me a piece to carry p>
“We’ll fix it,” I said, my voice shaking. “We’ll find a way to get it out of you p>
“You can’t,” Axel said. He looked older than six. He looked older than me. “The mountain isn’t just a rock anymore, Mommy. It’s inside me now. And it’s hungry for the rest p>
A cold wind blew down from the peaks, carrying the smell of ozone and rot. I looked back at the rubble. The chaos might have stopped, but the silence felt even more dangerous. We were standing in the middle of a dark forest, miles from help, with an Alpha who could barely stand and a son who was literally glowing with the power of a dead god.
“Nate, we have to move,” I said, standing up and pulling the kids to their feet. “If Martha and the others survived that collapse, they’ll be hunting us p>
“They won’t be hunting,” Nate said, pointing down the slope toward the village lights in the distance.
I looked. Tiny blue flames were flickering in the dark. The Elders’ lanterns. They weren’t running away. They were forming a circle around the base of the mountain, cutting us off from the valley.
They were waiting for their King to come home.
“There’s a hunter’s cabin about five miles north,” Nate said, grabbing a sturdy branch to use as a crutch. “It’s hidden in the caves. They won’t look for us there p>
“Caves?” I shook my head, a spike of panic hitting me. “No. No more underground. We stay in the light p>
“Dahlia, the sun is going down,” Nate said, his hand touching my arm. “The things Gina woke up… they don’t like the light. We need to hide p>
I looked at my children. Aidan was holding a sharp piece of stone like a knife. Ariana was clutching her doll so hard the head was drooping. And Axel… Axel was looking at the blue lanterns with a strange, hungry expression.
I realized then that the fight in the hall was just the beginning. The pack house was destroyed, but the war for my children’s souls was just getting started.
“Fine,” I said, picking up Axel. He felt heavier than before, like he was made of lead. “Lead the way. But if I see one more shadow, Nate, I’m taking the kids and I’m disappearing for good. I mean it p>
We started walking, our footsteps were heavy on the damp earth. Every time a twig snapped, I jumped. Every time the wind howled, I thought I heard Gina’s screech.
We reached the edge of a steep hill when Ariana suddenly stopped. She pointed toward a thick patch of ferns.
“Mommy? Why is that lady watching us p>
I froze. I slowly turned my head toward the ferns.
There was no one there. Just a pile of white rocks and some old, bleached wood.
“There’s no one there, baby,” I said, my voice trembling.
“She’s there,” Ariana insisted, her eyes widening. “She has a gold dress. But she doesn’t have a face. She says she wants her cupcakes back p>
I looked at Nate. The color drained from his face.