Chapter 11 #2
Nina had her nose buried in her phone. Her thumbs were flying across the screen as if her life depended on the latest social media updates. Knowing our luck, it probably did. "Whoa. People are posting videos of aurora-like lights in broad daylight. The cleansing is visible to ordinary humans."
The quiet stretched between us. It was filled only by the soft click of Nina's scrolling and the distant hum of whatever magical chaos we'd unleashed.
I was just starting to relax—a rookie mistake if there ever was one—when Mythia appeared at my elbow with a steaming plate of something that smelled like heaven wrapped in bacon.
"Eat," she commanded in that no-nonsense tone that brooked zero argument. "Your babies need the food even if you don’t."
I accepted the food gratefully. My stomach growled loudly as soon as I looked down at it. It was telling me no more running on adrenaline and determination. I ate gratefully and waited for the other shoe to drop.
Minutes ticked by, and nothing new happened.
Maybe a half hour later, Jean-Marc's face went three shades paler than his usual color. I couldn’t say how long it was exactly because time had this annoying habit of becoming fluid when the world was ending.
Every second felt like an eternity while simultaneously racing toward disaster at light speed.
My son made a noise in the back of his throat—half-strangled curse, half-wounded animal—and lifted horrified eyes from his screen. "Shit. New reports are coming in from all over. Something is triggering a massive destabilization."
"What are people saying is happening?" I asked, my stomach already doing that fun little twist that meant my day was about to get a whole lot worse.
Jean-Marc's expression could've curdled milk. "Lyra's poisoned ley lines are collapsing. They’re taking innocents out as they go down." Well, shit. That wasn't good.
“Phoebe,” Tarja's voice slid into my mind like silk, “you should expect refugees soon.”
I blinked, looking over at her. "Refugees?"
“Magical ones,” she continued telepathically. “They are going to seek a safe place to go. Hattie’s place has always been known as one. It’s why people come to you with their problems.”
“Who are we talking about?” I asked.
Jean-Marc's eyes ran over the screen. "Displaced shifter packs, hedge witches, even some fae are fleeing the areas where the corruption is breaking down."
"Fantastic," I muttered. My life wasn't complicated enough already.
No one had a chance to respond because Vera and Thalia burst through the door mid-conversation, their faces etched with worry. "—can't be right," Vera was saying, shaking her head. "The reports don't make sense."
"They're consistent though," Thalia countered, then noticed us staring. "Oh. Sorry. We were discussing—"
The sharp rap on the front door cut through whatever Thalia was about to say. We all froze like deer in headlights. "I'll get it," came Nana's voice from downstairs, followed by the sound of her shuffling toward the door.
A moment later, her voice rang out. "Phoebe, honey! Looks like your escapees are here. We don’t have enough guest rooms!"
I groaned. Of course, they were already here. Timing was apparently not a thing the universe believed in. I needed to get up and see what was going on. With a silent prayer, I tried to heave my body off the mattress.
Jean-Marc appeared at my side. His hands were gentle but firm as he helped me to a standing position. I lumbered toward the window. Being pregnant with triplets meant I moved at a snail’s pace.
Through the glass, I could see people approaching our front gate.
There was a small group of maybe eight or ten people.
Children were clinging to adults and had expressions that screamed 'we've seen some shit’.
The first family caught my attention. There was a middle-aged woman with dirt-stained robes and a man whose left arm was wrapped in a bloody towel.
Their magical signatures felt like herbs and plants.
“They were Earth witches whose power had been brutally severed from its source,” Tarja said into my mind.
"Holy shit," I murmured as my stomach roiled. "They need help," I said as I turned toward the stairs before anyone could object.
"Mom, we don't know if this is safe," Jean-Marc warned, immediately moving to support my elbow. "This could be an elaborate trap."
"Then we'll deal with it," I replied, gripping his arm and the banister as I carefully navigated the steps. With triplets turning my center of gravity into a cruel joke, stairs had become my nemesis. "But I'm not turning away refugees who are fleeing the same nightmare we're fighting."
Mom met us at the bottom of the stairs. "They're not hostile," she told us. "They’re terrified and exhausted, but not dangerous."
“That’s reassuring,” I replied as I continued my trek.
A hedge witch stepped forward first. Her hands were raised in that universal 'I come in peace' gesture.
"Forgive the intrusion," she said in a voice that sounded like she'd been gargling gravel.
"I am Meredith Thornfield. We're hoping for a safe place to hide until this is stopped.
Our grove... our sacred grove was destroyed. "
"What happened to it?" Thalia asked gently.
Meredith's composure cracked like an eggshell. "Poisoned dryads. Their bark was black as pitch, and their touch withered everything they encountered. They came at sunset and destroyed three centuries of carefully tended magic in less than an hour."
Before anyone could respond to that, movement in the front yard caught my attention. Another figure was approaching, but this was different. Where the refugees carried the hunched posture of recent trauma, this person walked with the measured steps of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
"Is she friend or foe?" I asked as I squinted to make out details in the morning light.
She was an elderly woman who couldn't have been taller than five feet.
Even from a distance, she radiated the kind of presence that made you instinctively step back.
Her white hair was braided with small bones and what looked like dried flowers.
Her eyes were completely silver, with no visible pupils or irises.
"Oh, shit," Thalia breathed behind me. "That's a seer. A real one."
The old woman's silver gaze fixed on Thalia with laser intensity. "Thalia Umbra," she said. "The lost child returns when the wheel completes another turn."
Thali frowned at her as she reached the bottom of the porch. "Do I know you?"
"I am Cordelia Nightwhisper," the seer replied, stepping onto our porch without invitation. "I knew your grandmother's grandmother. I was there when the family thought you dead. I am here because the threads of fate have been pulled so taut they sing with tension."
"Are we about to get some cryptic warnings from you? Because we've had our share for one lifetime," I quipped.
Cordelia's silver eyes turned to me. When she smiled, a chill raced down my spine that had nothing to do with the morning air. "Phoebe Duedonne. The star-bearer whose children will reshape the magical world. Your little ones have been busy, haven't they?"
"How do you—" I started, then stopped myself. "You know what? I don't want to know how you know that. Just tell me why you're here."
"I am here because the cleansing you've begun has awakened things that have slept for centuries," Cordelia said.
Her voice had taken on the rhythmic cadence of someone delivering a prophecy.
"Past lives stir, ancient debts demand payment, and powers long thought vanquished prepare to claim what they believe is theirs. "
"Could you be a little more specific?" Aidon asked with the patience of someone who dealt with this shit on a regular basis. "Are we talking about Lyra, or something new?"
Cordelia's laugh was like wind chimes in a graveyard.
"Oh, child of the Underworld, Lyra is merely the first ripple in a much larger storm.
Your success today has drawn attention from quarters that have remained neutral for millennia.
The Pleiades magic your wife carries? Others remember when it was newly cast down from the heavens. "
The temperature around us dropped noticeably as Aidon's power responded to the implied threat. "You need to elaborate on that. Now."
"The original Pleiades sisters were not the only ones cast down from the celestial realm," Cordelia said.
She was completely unbothered by the intimidation radiating from my mate.
"Their rivals, their enemies, their scorned lovers—all were scattered across the planes of existence.
Your children's power calls to them like a beacon. "
"Basically, we're about to have even more psychotic immortals trying to steal my babies' magic?" I shrieked and waved my arms like a mad woman.
"Three factions converge," Cordelia intoned, her silver eyes beginning to glow with prophetic fire.
"The Forgotten Ones are stirring. I've seen them in the spaces between—creatures that once ruled when humans cowered in caves.
They remember the taste of fear, the weight of worship.
Now they claw at the barriers between worlds, desperate to reclaim what was stolen from them.
"The Starfall Court burns with old fury,” she continued.
“Beautiful, terrible beings who held the night sky in their palms before mortals learned to count the stars.
They nurse grudges like fine wine, letting betrayal ferment into something potent enough to poison generations.
The slight against them echoes still—a wound that festers, demanding blood payment.
"But it's the Void Touched you should fear most." Her voice dropped to a whisper that somehow filled the entire space.
"They've tasted the space between heartbeats and found it.
.. lacking. They hunger for the marrow of existence itself, the bones that keep your world from collapsing into soup.
They would snap every natural law like kindling, shred every promise the universe ever made, just to build themselves a playground from the wreckage. "
"When will they attack?" Thalia demanded, her face pale but determined.
"The eclipse that comes will tear the veils between worlds," Cordelia replied. "What Lyra intended as her moment of triumph becomes instead a gateway for forces beyond her comprehension. She has lit a signal fire that burns across dimensions."
The refugees who had been listening to this exchange with growing alarm began murmuring among themselves. I caught fragments of conversation. Kids begged their parents to leave. Others offered to help. Most said prayers to the gods.
"We're not abandoning anyone," I announced, raising my voice to address the growing crowd in our foyer. "These new factions are not an issue right now. Lyra is. We are going to deal with her first."
A woman stepped forward. Alpha authority rolled off her in waves. "My pack stands with you."
Meredith clutched her hands together in a white-knuckled grip. "Our grove is ash, but we'll fight."
"Outstanding," Nana said as she emerged from the kitchen with her shotgun. "Cordelia, do your visions come with battle plans, or just cryptic warnings?"
Cordelia's silver eyes held a glint that might have been humor. "Their power calls to all powerful bloodlines. Your babies could unite what's been fractured for millennia."
"Unite what now?" I asked, both hands pressed to my swollen belly as the triplets stirred restlessly.
"Mom, massive magical disturbances across the eastern seaboard," Nina interrupted. “Something's happening everywhere at once."
“The collapse is accelerating,” Tarja purred in my mind from her perch in my room. “What Lyra triggered is spreading like a plague.” That was just peachy keen. The Best news of the day, really.