Chapter 414: When Ons Start Running
Back at the pack compound;
Eldric stood in front of the hearth, unmoving.
The flas crackled softly, licking at the wood, throwing wavering shadows across the walls of the house. The warmth barely touched him. He could feel it on his skin, but it did nothing to chase away the chill that had settled deep in his bones — a cold that did not belong to winter or weather, but to inevitability.
His fingers flexed slowly at his sides.
Sothing was wrong.
The sensation pressed against the back of his mind like an itch he couldn’t scratch, like a distant pressure building behind glass. It wasn’t pain. Not yet. It was the sa quiet warning he had learned to recognize long ago — the whisper of the future shifting its weight.
Before he consciously decided to move, his body already had.
He turned sharply from the hearth and crossed the room in long strides toward the reading desk pressed against the far wall. Papers lay scattered across it in controlled chaos — sketches, symbols, fragnts of prophecy layered over one another like overlapping tilines.
His gaze locked onto a single parchnt.
The drawing of the half-beast.
His breath caught as he picked it up.
The image was rougher than so of his other work, the lines heavier, darker, pressed into the page with a tension that had not existed when he had first drawn it. A towering figure stood frozen in ink — broad-shouldered, partially monstrous, the upper body unmistakably humanoid while the rest dissolved into sothing feral and ancient. Chains coiled around its limbs in his original sketch, but the way the shadows curved around the figure had always bothered him.
His hands began to shake violently.
A sharp pulse of dread struck his chest, stealing the air from his lungs.
"No..." he whispered.
The parchnt slipped from his fingers and fluttered back onto the desk. He snatched up another sheet instead, almost desperately, and seized a quill. Ink splattered slightly as he dipped it too quickly into the inkwell.
His hand touched the paper.
And then it wasn’t his hand anymore.
The quill moved with ruthless certainty, lines flowing fast and unbroken. His fingers cramped instantly, the muscles burning as they were dragged along by a force that did not ask permission. Symbols bled into shapes, shapes into structure.
His heart began to pound with terror.
The familiar ache blood in his chest, sharp and hollow all at once, like sothing vital was being squeezed tighter and tighter. He could feel the pull of the vision threading through his nerves, flooding his senses.
Dread soaked into him like cold rain.
His jaw tightened as he tried to resist, but the effort was aningless. He could no more stop the drawing than he could stop his own heartbeat.
Stroke after stroke.
Curve after curve.
Darkness ford first — rough stone walls, jagged edges, narrow spacing. The suggestion of depth. A cavern.
His breath ca shallow.
"No," he whispered again, more urgently now.
A figure took shape.
Smaller than the environnt around her. Upright. Slender.
His stomach twisted.
Hair fell down her back in familiar lines. The slope of her shoulders, the tension in her stance, the angle of her chin as she lifted her face toward sothing unseen.
Sophia.
His heart lurched violently.
The quill continued rcilessly, sketching the opposing presence — massive, looming, partially lost in shadow. Broad shoulders. Inhuman proportions. A faint suggestion of chains curling around powerful limbs. Eyes too bright even in ink.
His hand froze mid-stroke.
The silence slamd into the room like a held breath.
Eldric stared down at the completed drawing.
Sophia stood inside a cave.
And the beast was looking directly at her.
Blood roared in his ears.
"No, no, no, no—"
He shoved himself away from the desk so abruptly that the chair scraped loudly across the stone floor. The parchnt fluttered as the movent disturbed the air, sliding slightly closer to the edge of the desk.
He didn’t look at it again.
He turned and bolted for the door.
The cold air outside slapped into his face as he burst out of the house, the door banging shut behind him. His boots hit the snow-filled ground hard, breath tearing from his lungs as he ran.
"No, no, no, no..." the words spilled from him uncontrollably, breaking apart on each ragged exhale.
His mind raced faster than his body could keep up.
Sophia in a cave.
The beast.
Timing didn’t matter. Context didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the vision had shifted into present motion.
That ant it was happening.
Now.
He thought he still had ti. He thought there was ti before everything happened. He was wrong.
He veered sharply toward Sophia’s ho, cutting across the path instead of following it properly. Snow moved beneath his boots as he nearly lost his footing, catching himself just in ti.
He reached her door and pounded on it with enough force to make the wood shudder.
"Sophia!" he shouted, voice raw. "Sophia, open the door!"
No answer.
He knocked again, harder, panic clawing up his spine.
Still nothing.
His chest tightened painfully.
He spun and ran again, this ti toward Orion’s ho. He was lucky Orion’s ho was right next door.
He slamd his fist against Orion’s door.
"Orion!" he called sharply. "Open up!"
Silence greeted him.
Not even the faint stir of movent from within.
His heart dropped.
He staggered back a step, breath hitching — and then the realization hit him like a physical blow.
The test.
He had heard the murmurs in passing. Snippets of conversation between pack mbers. He should have known that they would not be in if the test was taking place.
He turned on his heel and ran blindly through the pack grounds, weaving between buildings and startled pack mbers. A few heads turned at the sight of him sprinting like a man possessed, cloak snapping behind him.
Soone called his na, but he didn’t slow.
He pushed harder, ignoring the stitch forming in his side.
He barely registered the figure stepping into his path until impact was inevitable.
He collided hard into a solid chest and stumbled, hands flying out instinctively to brace himself. A strong arm caught his shoulders, steadying him before he could fall.
"Eldric—what in the goddess’s—"
Daniel’s voice cut through the haze.
Eldric’s hands clenched into the fabric of Daniel’s tunic without thinking, breath coming fast and uneven. His pulse hamred violently beneath his skin.
"Sophia," Eldric gasped. "I need to find Sophia and Orion."
Daniel blinked in surprise. "What?"
"Where is she?" Eldric repeated urgently. "Where are they?"
Daniel frowned, confusion knitting his brows. "They’re not in the pack."
Eldric’s grip tightened unconsciously.
"You’ve missed several council etings lately, Eldric," Daniel told him.
The reminder barely registered.
"That’s not the issue," Eldric snapped, shaking his head sharply. "I need to find Sophia. She’s in danger."
Daniel’s expression hardened, concern flickering beneath suspicion. "What are you talking about?"
"There’s no ti to explain," Eldric insisted. "You guys need to move—"
Daniel’s hand tightened on his arm, stopping him.
"Wait," Daniel said sharply. His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Eldric’s face. "No one is going anywhere until you explain what you an."
Eldric froze.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Daniel’s gaze shifted subtly — not just looking at him, but sensing.
"And," Daniel added slowly, voice dropping, "you’re going to tell who you are right now."
Eldric swallowed.
Daniel leaned in slightly, nostrils flaring as he drew in a deeper breath.
"Because you don’t sll like the Eldric I know."
The world seed to tilt.
For a split second, everything inside Eldric went painfully still — the panic, the urgency, the pounding fear — all suspended beneath the sudden weight of exposure.
His fingers loosened their grip on Daniel’s tunic.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted a hand and adjusted his glasses.
His throat felt dry.
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