The mountain wind died the instant we crossed the invisible line. One heartbeat it howled around us, the next there was nothing. No sound, no scent, not even the scrape of our boots on stone. Only cold that sank straight through flesh and curled around bone.
Then the silence began to speak.
At first it was a whisper, soft as the brush of Leo's hair against my cheek when he used to fall asleep on my chest. I thought I imagined it. Then the whisper grew teeth.
You were never enough.
The path tilted. The rock under my palms turned to polished wood—the floor of the Blackwood great hall on the night of my eighteenth birthday. Torches blazed. Every wolf in the territory packed the room, their eyes bright with anticipation. Ryan stood on the dais in formal black, the silver rejection cuff already in his hand.
Only this time he was smiling.
Not the tight, agonized smile I remembered. A real smile, wide and cruel and relieved.
"Aria Blackwood," he announced, voice ringing to the rafters, "I, Ryan Calder, reject you as my mate."
Laughter rolled through the crowd. My father's betas, my childhood friends, even my own mother—dead these ten years—laughed until tears streamed down their faces. Ryan lifted the cuff like a trophy.
"I never loved you," he said, eyes shining with delight. "I endured you. Every touch made me sick. Every time you said my name I wanted to scrub my skin raw."
He stepped closer. The cuff snapped around my wrist, cold iron burning like acid. The bond inside my chest tore open, veins of fire ripping outward. I screamed, but no sound came. Only more laughter.
The floor dissolved into mud and pine needles. I was on my knees again, but the great hall was gone. Instead I saw Leo.
My son hung between two of Valen's guards, silver chains biting into his thin wrists. Blood poured from a gash across his forehead, matting his dark curls. He couldn't have been more than five in this vision, small and breakable.
"Mommy?" His voice cracked.
I lunged. My claws raked empty air. The guards dragged him backward into a cage of black iron. Leo reached for me, fingers trembling.
"You're too late," one guard sneered. "You always were."
The cage slammed shut. Leo's scream shredded the night as the guards carried him into darkness. I clawed at the bars, nails splitting, blood slicking the metal. The cage melted into water and slipped through my fingers. Leo was gone.
My legs gave out. Stone rushed up to smash my knees. Real stone this time, sharp and icy. I couldn't breathe. The air had turned to glass inside my lungs.
"Aria!"
Ryan's voice came from very far away. I felt his arms haul me up, burned skin against my throat, but the illusion clung like damp rot. I saw him holding the rejection cuff again, laughing again, and I swung blindly. My fist connected with his jaw. His head snapped sideways, blood blooming on his lip, but he didn't let go.
"Damn it, Aria, look at me!"
I couldn't. Leo was screaming somewhere behind my eyes.
Ryan snarled, the sound pure Alpha, raw and ancient. He slammed his palm against my sternum, right over my heart, and shoved power into me like a blade. The force arched my spine. For one blinding second the illusions flickered.
I saw the real path, narrow and treacherous, moonlight silver on wet rock. I saw Elias crumpled against Ryan's shoulder, silver hair whipping in a wind I couldn't feel. I saw Ryan's face inches from mine, streaked with blood and terror and something fiercer than both.
"Stay with me," he roared. "That's an order from your mate."
The word mate cracked the nightmare wide open.
I sucked in air that tasted of snow and pine and Ryan's blood. The great hall shattered. The cage dissolved. Leo's scream faded into the roar of distant water.
The illusions tried to claw back. I felt them scrabbling at the edges of my mind, hungry, but Ryan's power still burned inside my chest like a brand. I seized it, twisted it, added every ounce of royal blood in my veins until my voice rolled out of me in the Voice of the Blackwood line, the one that could bring wolves to their knees.
"Enough."
The command exploded outward. Invisible chains snapped. The cold retreated with a hiss, as if the mountain itself flinched.
Silence rushed back in, real silence this time, broken only by our ragged breathing and the low, steady thud of a waterfall ahead.
I sagged against Ryan. My legs wouldn't hold me. He caught my weight without hesitation, shifting Elias higher on his shoulder so he could wrap an arm around my waist.
"I saw you," I rasped against his neck. "Laughing. Telling me you never loved me."
His whole body went rigid. "I felt it trying to crawl inside me too. It showed me your corpse at my feet and told me I'd put it there." His voice cracked. "I almost believed it."
I pulled back far enough to see his eyes. They were wet.
"Never," he said fiercely. "Not one second of one day. You hear me?"
I nodded, throat too raw for words.
We started walking again. The path narrowed until only one could pass at a time. Ryan went first, Elias a dead weight against his back now, me behind them clutching the red cloth tied around Ryan's arm like it was the only real thing left in the world.
The roar of water grew until it filled my skull. Then the stone opened up and we stepped out onto a wide ledge.
Before us, a curtain of black water plunged from a height I couldn't see, crashing into a pool that steamed despite the cold. Behind the waterfall, carved into the cliff face, was a cavern mouth framed by runes that glowed sickly green. The magic seal stretched across it like a living membrane, pulsing with every heartbeat.
We had reached the Black Hollow Temple.
The seal rippled as we approached, tasting the air. I felt it recognize the royal blood in my veins and the Alpha in Ryan's and hiss in delight.
Somewhere inside that cave, the Hollow Daughters waited.
Somewhere beyond them, my son.
I drew a steadying breath, tasting lilac and rust, and stepped forward until the spray soaked my face.
Ryan's hand found mine, fingers threading tight.
Together, we faced the seal and whatever price waited on the other side.