~Elara's Pov~
Power is a dangerous thing when you don't know where it ends and you begin.
In the days that followed the attack, I kept my distance from Kade. Not out of spite, though there was still tension between us but out of fear. Not of him, but of myself. Something inside me had shifted so violently that I no longer recognized the way I moved or the way I felt. The power within me, once buried so deep it felt like a forgotten organ, now pulsed just beneath the surface of my skin like it was waiting to be fed. It sang when I walked under the moonlight. It whispered in my dreams. It called to the parts of me that had always felt... other. I was no longer just a woman haunted by the shadows of her past; I was something those shadows feared.
But raw power is a blade without a hilt. I had no control. Every emotion threatened to crack the world open around me. A spike of anger would send glass shivering in its frames. A flicker of lust would make the air pulse hot. I couldn't keep living like that, teetering on the edge of becoming something I couldn't put back in the box.
Kade offered to help. Said he'd seen witches channel before, centuries ago, and that he could teach me what little he remembered. But there was something in his eyes—reverent, fearful—that made me decline. I didn't want to be a weapon in the hands of a man whose blood sang for mine. I needed someone who knew what I was from the inside out. Someone who could see the curse and the flame... and not flinch.
I didn't expect that someone to show up on my doorstep in the middle of a thunderstorm.
She was young. No older than me. But there was a weight in her stare that spoke of lifetimes. Her skin was the color of earth soaked in moonlight, her eyes a glowing green that didn't feel quite natural. Her hair was twisted into locs adorned with bones and stones, and she wore a coat that looked like it had survived a dozen centuries. The air around her felt charged, as though the storm were hers to command.
"You're Elara," she said simply.
"I am."
She nodded. "Then I've come just in time. You're about to implode."
"Great. That's comforting." I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, wary. "And you are?"
"Nyssa." She said it with no flourish, no need to impress. "Daughter of Myrra. Keeper of the flame."
My breath caught. "My mother's name was Myrra."
"No," she corrected softly. "Myrra was your mother's coven-sister. Your aunt, by blood and bond. Your real mother's name was Seraphine. She died to keep you hidden."
The words struck like thunder. I should've slammed the door. Should've called her a liar, screamed. But my body didn't move. My blood, however—it sang at the sound of that name. Seraphine. Like a bell ringing in a long-forgotten cathedral.
"She knew they would hunt you," Nyssa continued. "The Ignari. The rogue alphas. Even our own. You were too powerful. A hybrid of wolf and witch has never survived past childhood. But you did."
I swallowed hard. "Why now?"
"Because you've awakened. And if you don't learn how to control that power, Elara, you'll tear the veil between this world and the next."
My stomach turned. "What are you talking about?"
"Your magic isn't just elemental. It's ancestral. You're a vessel, not just for your power—but for theirs. Every witch your line has ever buried. Every drop of wolf-blood you carry. It's all in you, and it's waking up." Her gaze darkened. "Untrained, it'll burn through you. And when it does, it won't stop there."
That's how I ended up in the ruins of an abandoned church two nights later, standing barefoot on cold stone, with Nyssa chanting in a language I didn't understand while the wind around us howled like it wanted to devour me.
"This is where your mother gave birth to you," she said, drawing runes around my feet with crushed moonroot ash. "She marked the stone with her own blood and begged the moon to protect you. We're going to ask it to finish what she started."
I didn't ask how she knew. I didn't question the ritual. I just stood there, arms open, heart racing. If there was ever a moment to fall apart completely, this was it.
"Close your eyes," Nyssa said gently. "And listen."
I did.
At first, there was nothing.
Then, the sound of my heartbeat.
Then, the rush of blood in my ears.
And then... voices.
Dozens. Hundreds. All whispering at once. Some crying. Some chanting. Some laughing like children. A wave of memory—not my own—crashed into me. Witches burning. Wolves howling. A child screaming in the dark. A woman with eyes like mine standing in front of a raging mob and smiling as fire consumed her. My skin blistered with echoes of pain I never lived—but somehow still carried.
"I can't," I gasped. "It's too much."
"Yes, you can," Nyssa snapped, voice sharp like a whip. "Breathe through it. You don't silence the ancestors. You listen to them. You let them move through you."
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out—only light. It poured from my lips, from my eyes, from every pore of my skin. My body hovered off the ground, and for a moment I wasn't Elara. I was Seraphine's daughter. I was the blade and the fire. The wolf and the witch. The broken chain. The final curse.
And then... silence.
When I opened my eyes again, I was on the ground, trembling, but whole. The runes around me still glowed faintly. My veins felt like they carried starlight. And Nyssa was smiling.
"You're ready," she said simply.
"For what?"
"To survive what's coming."
I didn't ask her what that meant. I didn't need to.
Because the sky split open with a roar.
And Kade stepped into the ruins, eyes glowing, blood streaked across his jaw.
"They've declared a blood hunt," he growled. "The Ignari have summoned the Old Tribunal. They want you dead by moonrise."
Nyssa's eyes didn't blink. "Let them come."
And in that moment, I understood.
I wasn't the hunted anymore.