Unknown
Unknown POV
The room smells of smoke and old earth.
Hooded figures stand in a loose circle around a stone table etched with ruins, candlelight flickering across their faces.
“She is not like the others,” the words are spoken with certainty this time.
“No,” another voice agrees. “The others were never right.”
“They burned too fast.”
“They cracked.”
“They gave nothing back.”
Silence follows.
“If she were the one, she will hold,” someone says. “One we could channel without breaking.”
“And now?”
“She slipped through us.”
A faint sound of irritation.
“She ran before we could mark her properly.”
“Still,” a third voice murmurs, thoughtful, “She matches.”
That draws attention.
“The hair,” the voice continues. “The colouring is right.”
A pause.
“Like her mother,” the voice continues quietly. “The same hair. The same blood.”
The words settle, heavy.
“That line was meant to be finished.”
“It was,” comes the reply. “She was bound. Hidden.”
“For a time.”
Silence stretches.
“The white one gave everything,” someone says quietly. “And still it wasn’t enough.”
“No,” another answers. “Just enough to delay us. Never to stop us.”
A soft, humourless sound.
"The pack still believes we saved them. That draining her power saved the Alpha.”
“We did,” a voice replies calmly. “History favours the authors.”
“Yes.”
No apology follows.
“This one will not expire the way the others did,” one voice says now. “She is stronger.”
“She will last.”
“That is the point.”
Another pause.
“She has not been prepared,” someone notes. “No conditioning. No softening.”
“That can be corrected.”
“And the pack?”
“They will understand,” comes the answer. “They always do.”
A beat.
"Or they will be made to."
Silence closes in again.
“She does not know what she is yet.”
“No,” the final voice says, almost gently. “But she will remember.”
“It’s begun.”
A pause.
“The current is… fuller.”
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
“It is,” comes the reply. “The bond is forming.”
Silence stretches – then satisfaction.
“At last.”
“And the girl?”
A soft, reverent tone enters the dark.
“She was never lost. She was always ours. The blood remembers."
The candles flicker violently as the voices fall silent.
Somewhere far away, in the forests of Evergreen, the girl breathes in.