Chapter 85 – The Voices That Should Not Exist
Liora’s POV
I should have been sleeping.
The healers certainly thought so.
Kael thought so too, although he had been careful not to say it directly.
Ever since my awakening, everyone seed to be watching for signs that sothing was wrong. The irony was that sothing was wrong. I just wasn’t sure how to explain it when I couldn’t explain it to myself first.
The fortress had finally gone quiet for the night.
Moonlight spilled through the windows of my chamber, casting pale shadows across the floor while the fire crackled softly in the hearth. Normally I found the sound comforting.
Tonight it only made the silence feel heavier.
I sat on the edge of the bed with a blanket wrapped loosely around my shoulders, staring out the window at the dark courtyard below.
Sleep wasn’t coming.
Every ti I closed my eyes, my mind returned to the sa things.
The awakening.
The glowing scars.
The wolves kneeling without understanding why.
The fear in people’s eyes.
The guilt in Kael’s.
A slow breath left my lungs.
I was tired.
Not physically.
That was the strange part.
For the first ti in months, my body wasn’t exhausted.
No soreness.
No weakness.
No lingering damage from training.
Nothing.
It felt wrong.
I had beco so used to pain that its absence felt unnatural.
My hand drifted to my stomach unconsciously.
The movent had beco a habit.
The pregnancy had changed everything.
Even before the awakening.
The bond with Kael had gone quiet because of it.
My powers had changed because of it.
Now every impossible thing seed connected to it sohow.
I lowered my gaze.
"What are you?" I whispered softly.
The question wasn’t really directed at the child.
It was directed at everything.
At my life.
At the awakening.
At whatever I was becoming.
The room remained silent.
For a mont, I almost laughed at myself.
Then I heard it.
Not with my ears.
Inside.
A shift.
A presence.
My body imdiately went still.
The sensation wasn’t new.
I had felt it before.
The first voice.
The one that appeared before my awakening.
The one I convinced myself was connected to my abilities.
Only this felt different.
Stronger.
Clearer.
And most importantly...
It wasn’t alone.
My heartbeat slowed.
I closed my eyes carefully.
Listening.
The awareness sharpened imdiately.
There.
Not one presence.
Several.
Quiet.
Watching.
Existing sowhere beyond thought but beneath consciousness.
A chill moved through .
I should have been afraid.
Instead I felt strangely focused.
The way I felt before a vision.
The way I felt when my abilities were trying to show sothing important.
"What is this?" I whispered.
The presences shifted.
Not answering.
Reacting.
Like they had noticed noticing them.
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
For several monts, nobody spoke.
Then sothing brushed against my awareness.
Soft.
Ancient.
Patient.
The sensation reminded of opening a door and realizing soone had already been standing on the other side waiting.
My throat tightened.
The first voice ca.
Not words exactly.
Recognition.
Awareness.
Then another presence stirred nearby.
Then another.
The realization made my stomach twist.
There were at least four.
Maybe more.
I couldn’t tell.
Each felt slightly different.
Separate.
Distinct.
Not fragnts of the sa thing.
Individuals.
The thought should have sounded insane.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
Not anymore.
Not after everything else.
I swallowed slowly.
"Who are you?"
The question lingered.
Silence followed.
Then suddenly two of the presences moved closer.
Not physically.
ntally.
The mont they did, sothing inside reacted.
A strange familiarity.
I frowned.
That made no sense.
I had never heard these voices before.
I had never felt these presences before.
Yet sohow they felt recognizable.
Like eting soone for the first ti and imdiately knowing their face.
My pulse quickened.
I focused harder.
The feeling intensified.
Not familiar to .
Familiar to—
My breath caught.
Kael.
The realization hit so unexpectedly that I sat upright.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
Yet the sensation remained.
The connection was unmistakable.
Those two presences carried sothing that reminded of the bond.
Not identical.
Related.
My hand imdiately moved to my stomach.
The room suddenly felt much smaller.
The bond between Kael and pulsed faintly in response, as if confirming the connection.
My heart began beating faster.
"What does that an?"
Nobody answered imdiately.
The presences remained calm.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then one of them finally spoke.
The voice wasn’t masculine.
Wasn’t feminine.
Wasn’t old.
Wasn’t young.
It simply existed.
And unlike before, the words arrived clearly.
"We’ve done this before."
The blanket slipped from my fingers.
Every muscle in my body locked.
A thousand thoughts collided at once.
Done what before?
Who was we?
How many tis?
The questions ca faster than I could process them.
The presence retreated slightly after speaking, as though it had already said enough.
My breathing beca uneven.
This wasn’t a vision.
It wasn’t one of my abilities.
It wasn’t a mory.
It was a conversation.
A real one.
The terrifying certainty settled over piece by piece.
Whatever these voices were...
They knew things.
Things I didn’t.
Things they expected to understand eventually.
My hand remained pressed against my stomach.
The awareness beneath my palm felt different now.
Not larger.
Not stronger.
Just impossible to ignore.
I thought back to everything that had happened since the pregnancy.
The changes.
The bond.
The awakening.
The first voice.
The growing sense that sothing inside had been waiting for this mont long before I understood any of it.
Slowly, a realization began taking shape.
At first I rejected it imdiately.
Then it refused to leave.
Because no matter how impossible it sounded, every path led back to the sa conclusion.
The child.
Everything led back to the child.
The room suddenly felt colder.
I stared down at my stomach.
My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it.
The voices remained silent now.
Watching.
Waiting.
As though they had already revealed enough for one night.
I swallowed hard.
Because for the first ti since discovering I was pregnant, I wasn’t wondering what kind of future my child would have.
I was wondering what my child actually was.
And as that thought settled heavily into my chest, one terrifying realization followed close behind it.
The thing growing inside ...
Wasn’t just a child.
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