Chapter 249

Chapter 249

Chapter 249

ARIA

I hauled myself up and over, collapsing onto stone that wasn’t covered in corpses, breathing air that didn’t smell of decay. Made it. I’d fucking made it.

lay there for precious seconds, just breathing, just being alive and out of the pit. Then I forced myself to sitting position and looked around.

I was in a different section of the maze. The central chamber was visible in the distance-I could see the glowing pedestal, could see a figure standing near it.

Ivory. She’d reached it. Had gotten the fragment.

Now I just had to reach her before time ran out or the maze collapsed completely or my injuries killed me.

I stood on shaking legs and started walking, one foot in front of the other, refusing to let my body give up when we were this close to completing the second trial.

The timer on my wrist showed 9:52:17.

Less than ten hours remaining. Three more trials to go. And I was bleeding from multiple wounds, broken in ways that should have incapacitated me, operating on willpower and bloodline magic that I barely understood.

But I was still moving. Still fighting. Still refusing to quit.

And I was going to reach Ivory. Going to complete this trial. Going to prove that I was worthy of the fragments and the power and the position I’d been given.

One step at a time. One breath at a time. One moment of stubborn refusal to surrender at a time.

I could do this. I would do this.

I had to.

IVORY

I ran for the center chamber with the sound of crumbling stone chasing me, with trenches

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Chapter 249

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widening beneath my feet as I crossed them, with bridges disintegrating seconds after I passed. It was the most dangerous navigation I’d ever attempted in my life-one mistake meant falling into those trenches with the creatures Aria had described, becoming another body feeding the earth, joining the ranks of the transformed.

My injured arm was screaming in protest at every movement, probably torn worse from pulling Aria toward safety before the ground had given way beneath her. But I couldn’t afford to think about it. Couldn’t slow down for pain or injury or the very real possibility that the next jump would be the one I didn’t make.

A trench ahead of me was widening visibly, the gap expanding from three feet to four to five even as I approached it. I’d have to time this perfectly-run, jump at the exact moment when the distance was still crossable but before the bridge on my side crumbled.

I ran. Jumped. Felt the stone beneath my feet give way as I launched. Was airborne for a heartbeat that felt like eternity. Landed on the opposite side just as that bridge also began to crumble, rolled forward to avoid falling back into the gap, came up running.

The central chamber was close now. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. The last bridge between me and it was narrowing rapidly, already barely wide enough for one foot directly in front of the other.

No time for careful crossing. I sprinted across it at full speed, felt it crumbling beneath my feet, jumped the last few feet to solid ground as the bridge disappeared entirely behind me.

I was in the center chamber. Trapped here now-the maze had closed completely around me, cutting off any retreat. The only way out was forward, through whatever exit the trial would provide after the crystal was claimed.

I bent over, hands on my knees, gasping for air, giving myself exactly five seconds to recover from the sprint through collapsing terrain. Then I straightened and assessed the trial space.

The second fragment sat on its pedestal in the center of the chamber, identical in design to the first-carved stone supporting a crystal. But this one was different in appearance. Not a crescent moon like Aria’s fragment. This one was shaped like a full moon, perfectly circular, glowing with pale blue light instead of silver or amber.

And surrounding the pedestal: stone figures.

Statues carved from the cave rock, positioned in a circle around the crystal. Each one depicted a wolf in various poses-some standing, some crouching, some mid-transformation between human and wolf form. But they were all expressing something similar. Agony. Defeat. Anguish. Faces twisted in pain or grief. Bodies positioned in ways that suggested suffering.

As I approached, the statues animated.

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Not fully-they remained stone, didn’t move or walk. But their heads turned to track movement, stone grinding against stone with sounds like bones breaking. Their mouths opened in silent screams, jaws unhinging wider than natural, demonstrating suffering they couldn’t vocalize.

And from their eyes, tears began to flow.

Not stone tears. Not carved representations of crying. Actual liquid. Blood-red, viscous, flowing from stone eyes down stone cheeks to drip onto the ground with soft pattering sounds.

Blood tears from stone wolves. The symbolism was obvious even before the voice spoke.

“Prove you understand loyalty,” it said, echoing through the chamber from no identifiable source. Male or female, I couldn’t tell. Ancient and powerful, definitely. “Prove you know when to hold and when to release p>

The statues shifted slightly, their features becoming clearer, and I recognized them with growing dread.

Kael. Frozen in stone mid-transformation, his face contorted in agony, blood tears streaming from his eyes.

Nina. Standing in defensive posture, her expression twisted with anguish I’d never seen from her in real life.

Margo. Crouched protectively over something I couldn’t see, her body language screaming grief and failure.

Other pack members I’d trained with, fought beside, protected over the years.

Each one rendered in stone. Each one crying blood. Each one representing a connection I’d built, a loyalty I’d earned, a relationship that mattered.

And one statue that made my blood run cold.

Myself.

Or rather, the version of myself from eight years ago. Before the curse. Before the memory loss. Before everything had changed and broken and been rebuilt into something different.

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