(... continued)
Kieran rushed forward looking at the panic in Autumn’s eyes. "What happened to Freya?" He looked from mother to daughter and back... but there was no answer.
The mont Kieran’s fingers brushed against Freya’s glowing hand, the world around him broke apart.
No sound. No air. No gravity.
Just light...blinding, raw, violent.
He didn’t even have ti to call her na. The force sucked him inward, ripping through every nerve, every thought, every barrier he had ever built around his mind.
And then...the fall began.
He plumted through what looked like a storm of mories that weren’t his own. Shards of images cut through the dark...temples in ruins, flas licking the sky, the echo of cries and laughter mixed into one impossible symphony.
He reached out...his hand passed through them like smoke.
Babies laughing on a field of lilies.
A woman in white watching from the shadows.
A war that split the heavens open.
Each vision burned into his veins like molten glass. His heart thudded faster...like a hamr trying to shatter the cage of his ribs.
Then the storm abruptly stilled.
He was standing on nothing...just a vast horizon, endless, gleaming, and cold. The air shimred with divine hums...like floating in from a primordial world...each note vibrating with impossible power.
A figure floated before him, robed in shifting shadows. Her presence was agony... but her face brought unexplained calm to Kieran... he never thought he would see that face ever again... yet he could clearly feel that it dripped with evil.
Kieran’s breath hitched.
"Mother...?"
The Most High turned slowly.
Her face was the sa he rembered from childhood dreams...beautiful, cruelly beautiful.
Her eyes flickered with galaxies, and yet when they fell on him, it felt like being pinned under the weight of a thousand suns.
"Kieran," she said, voice calm, echoing through the void like a choir. "You should not be here.Yet."
He took a step forward despite himself. "What are you up to, Mother? What have you done to Freya?"
A faint smile ghosted across her lips. "What I began long before you were conceived. What I chose before I even drew your existence."
Behind her, sothing stirred.
A cradle ford out of light...a baby wrapped in shifting shadows.
The child cooed softly, her skin flickering between brightness and darkness, as if both realms fought for her claim.
Kieran’s eyes widened. "That’s...is that Freya?"
The Most High didn’t deny it. She turned to the infant, touching her brow with one long, pale finger.
"She is the Harbinger."
Kieran froze. "What?"
"She will unite what should never be joined," his mother whispered, almost lovingly. "Darkness and Light. Flesh and Spirit. Love and Destruction...by destroying the Balance."
The last words reverberated like thunder across the void.
The light dimd. The shadows crawled closer.
Kieran’s voice cracked as he shouted, "You are lying! You can’t be serious here, Mother...She’s...she’s just a child! She’s my daughter! Why do you even have her essence trapped here? How?!"
The Most High looked at him now ,bodily turning with full attention...and there was sothing almost sad in her eyes.
"She is what she is, Kieran...not just your little daughter...just like ...like I am not just your mother. "
He felt the words hit him like knives.
"What?" he rasped. "What the hell is that supposed to an? You cursed her?"
"You have no authority over ,Kieran." she said, voice hardening, divine calm turning to storm. "Don’t you dare raise your voice at . The Balance must pay for it’s weakness.For what it took from ...." she touched the baby again.
"No...Don’t touch her!!!"
"She will either end or save the world as we know it...," the Most High murmured, "But that choice will definitely not be yours."
The cradle began to dissolve...the baby’s cry split the silence.
Kieran tried to run towards her...but the ground shattered beneath his feet, swallowing him whole.
"FREYA!" he scread, reaching out...his fingers almost brushed the child before light erupted again, burning through his retinas.
He jolted awake, gasping, his lungs searing for air.
He was back in the room grasping Autumn’s arms...other arm around Freya.
Alpha Malrick yelled or cursed at sothing.
The air slled of ozone and tears.
Kieran fell to his knees beside them, shaking, drenched in cold sweat.
Autumn looked up at him, desperate. "What happened? What did you see?"
He couldn’t answer. His mouth moved, but all that ca out was a strangled whisper...
"Kieran! Tell ! What did you see?!" Autumn bellowed, panic oozing from her lips as she shook Kieran’s shoulders.
" She is...she is the key...and my mother..."
He looked at Freya...still unconscious, still glowing faintly and his voice broke completely.
"It’s because of my mother... that she is the Harbinger."
The air grew thick....alive. It shimred with unseen force, like the room itself was breathing.
Freya lay limp in Autumn’s arms, her skin still faintly glowing, runes of light pulsing beneath her small wrists.
Kieran sat frozen beside them, every muscle taut, his eyes hollow, haunted.
Autumn’s hand shot out...fingers clutching his arms too hard.
"Kieran!" Her voice cracked like glass. "Look at !"
He didn’t. His gaze was still locked on Freya, pupils blown wide, jaw clenched as though the words were too heavy to form.
"Kieran... what did you exactly see?Tell everything!" she demanded, shaking him now, desperate, tears trembling at the edges of her lashes. "Tell what the hell you saw!"
Kieran finally turned to her and in his eyes she saw it..terror. Not fear of death or pain, but sothing far worse.
Before he could speak, Alpha Malrick’s voice sliced through the charged silence.
"Enough."
His eyes glowed faintly gold as he stepped forward, hand raised.
Autumn spun on him, her flas already licking up the sides of her arms...blue...radiant, celestial. The light danced wild in her eyes.
"Don’t you dare stop ...you have no command over..."
"You will kill her if you keep channeling that," Malrick thundered. His palm struck the floor, and instantly... ancient sigils flared around Freya’s small form.
Symbols older than the Moon Pact. Older than the realms themselves.
Each rune carved itself in air and light, spinning in slow, deliberate circles...forming a barrier of gold and crimson that pulsed with steady rhythm, like a second heartbeat.
Autumn’s breath hitched. "What are you doing...?"
"Containing her," Malrick said, eyes narrowing, sweat glistening at his temple. "That child’s power is not hers alone anymore. She’s channeling sothing older...sothing that doesn’t belong in this realm. You have to let bind it before it consus her."
Autumn’s flas surged.
The blue burned brighter, flaring from her back like wings unfurling. Her hair whipped in the wild rush of heat, eyes glowing with furious light.
"You think I will just sit and watch you carve old magic around my child?! I won’t let you touch her!"
"Then she will die," Malrick said simply.
His voice didn’t rise...it deepened.
Like a truth spoken from the marrow of experience. "You don’t understand what’s waking inside her, Autumn. Even your celestial fla won’t match it."
Kieran stirred weakly beside them. "Autumn..." His voice was rough, trembling. "He’s right."
"Don’t you dare try to...!" Autumn snapped, spinning toward him.
Just then Freya whimpered faintly...her tiny fingers twitching...and that sound alone shattered Autumn’s resolve.
The blue fire stuttered, faltered for half a heartbeat.
She fell to her knees again beside Freya, her breath coming fast and shallow. The runes Malrick had laid began to hum, glowing brighter as they absorbed the energy pouring from Freya’s body.
But Autumn’s celestial flas refused full obedience. They slipped free in thin veins of light, flickering across her skin...like her very soul resisted being still.
Malrick’s voice ca again, softer now.
"Autumn... you must trust ."
Her head jerked up, tears glinting in her lashes, jaw trembling.
"Trust? You want to trust your old magic ...the very reason why the Balance had to co into force...you want to just stand here and let you violate the very rules of heavens I am supposed to safeguard?While my baby...oh goddess...I just found her...how can I see her burn inside out....how..."
Malrick’s eyes softened, but he did not stop tracing sigils midair. His hands moved like wind weaving silk.
"You are not the only one who’s lost a child," he murmured. "I know that scream. That helplessness. But you don’t really need to lose her if you let help...if you don’t you will lose her truly...that is if you let your fire fight mine."
Autumn’s breath caught, breaking in the middle.
She stared at Kiera...torn...between instinct and reason...between her celestial wrath and her mother’s fear.
The blue flas around her pulsed violently once, then flickered low...then high again...uncertain.
She reached out trembling fingers, brushing Freya’s cheek. "Please... please wake up, my love..."
Her flas shimred faintly, crawling down her arms in trembling light.
Kieran’s whispered behind her ear,holding her still from the back "Autumn... let him try. For her."
Her eyes closed...a single tear escaped.
And in the next heartbeat, her flas dimd...softening to a faint glow that pulsed in rhythm with the sigils surrounding Freya.
The air thickened again...heavy with layered magics....all weaving together in a fragile harmony.
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