Chapter 47
As soon as Kayla took the last step, she found herself standing in the Alchemist’s hall.
The room was wide, darker than she had imagined, and filled with strange bottles, jars, and herbs that she could not name.
There was a long table at the center, made of something that looked like blackened stone, and every corner of the hall was shadowed.
Despite the high ceiling, the space felt like it was closing in on her.
The air was heavy, filled with a scent she couldn't describe. It was sharp, bitter, and ancient, like something left to rot and ferment for decades.
Kayla's eyes swept across the room slowly. At the far end, under a flickering lantern that hung from a crooked chain, there was a silhouette.
It looked like someone bent over a cauldron. But the figure didn’t move. It didn’t even seem to breathe.
Kayla blinked several times. Maybe it wasn’t a person. Maybe it was just a robe hung up to dry. Or maybe it was something else entirely.
Something suddenly crashed to the ground on her left. A glass jar.
"Ah!" Kayla jumped and covered her mouth.
Her heart was pounding in her chest. Her feet took two steps backward on their own before she forced herself to stop.
Kayla glanced behind her. The staircase was still there, dimly lit from the flickering torchlight on the wall.
But she remembered who was waiting at the bottom. The Silvershots. Jared. They were there, and they had come for her.
There was no going back. Not unless she wanted to be dragged away like a criminal.
Still, a part of her wanted to run. The sight of the dark hall, the unmoving silhouette, the strange silence, it all made her skin crawl.
She had never been afraid of anything. Not even when she was locked in the Moon Shadow cell for years.
Not even when she ran through the woods alone, bleeding and hunted. But this place felt alive.
It watched her, studied her, waited for her to make a mistake.
Kayla closed her eyes for a second and questioned why she embarked on this journey.
And then she remembered what Alpha Zayron told her a few days ago in his chamber. He said;
“In this new world of mine, where everything feels familiar yet so painfully foreign, you are the only thing that makes sense.
Even though I don't know who you are. You’re the only person I trust right now.
Sadness, rage, vengeance. They burn inside me. I feel them everywhere, all the time. And I don’t know how to stop them.
If there’s any way you can help me, do it.”
Kayla opened her eyes and felt a strange surge of courage within her.
She took a deep breath and stepped forward.
The hall remained silent. Even her footsteps didn’t make a sound, as though the stone swallowed everything whole.
Kayla moved toward the long table, eyeing the shelves that lined the walls.
Some bottles had labels written in runes. Some jars had things floating in thick liquid, plants, eyes, bones, she couldn’t tell.
One of them had something that looked like a curled-up fetus, and she quickly looked away.
As she passed the table, the figure at the end of the hall finally moved. The sound was slow.
Bones cracking. Joints stretching. The figure straightened slightly, and Kayla halted.
"I tried to stop you, but you were so stubborn," a voice said.
The voice was not loud. It was not soft. It was simply there. It vibrated in her bones.
Kayla couldn’t even tell where it came from.
"Are you the Alchemist of Lythos?" she asked, looking at the figure standing a few feet away.
The figure didn’t answer. Instead, it turned slowly, its face still hidden under a dark hood.
Then it raised its hand and pointed towards a wooden chair.
Kayla looked at the wooden chair she had been offered. At first glance, it looked normal, but when her eyes followed the carved legs to the floor, she froze.
Beneath the chair, half-covered by dust and dry leaves, was a werewolf skull.
She didn’t know if it was real or carved, but something about it felt too real to ignore.
The sockets of the skull stared up at her like it was warning her not to sit.
“Sit!” Another voice said and Kayla quickly turned and faced the direction the voice came from.
A tall figure stood near a corner. The person was wearing a long, hooded cloak that covered every part of their body.
Kayla couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The cloak was made of animal hide stitched together with dark thread, and the air around the figure felt colder than the rest of the room.
She narrowed her eyes at the figure and asked, “Are you the Alchemist?”
No response.
The figure didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there like a shadow pinned to the corner of the hall.
“Thank you,” Kayla said. “But I’ll rather stand.”
“Alright,” the voice responded.
Kayla turned and faced the other person who told her that she tried to stop her from coming.
She crossed her arms and stared harder.
“You tried to stop me at the Hall of Bargain,” she said. “You sent those versions of me. Why?”
For a long time, silence filled the hall.
Then, finally, the figure turned slightly, enough for Kayla to notice the sharp outline of a chin under the hood.
The voice that came out was low, hoarse, but it echoed strangely, as though it was layered with many voices, some male, some female, some too old or too young to guess.
“Because,” the figure said, “if you cross the Hall of Bargain, you can never go back without paying the price.”
Kayla’s breath caught in her throat.
The figure stepped forward, just a little. Enough for Kayla to notice that the person was barefoot.
The feet looked pale and thin, like they hadn’t touched sunlight in a hundred years.
The figure continued, “Even if you do not want the healing potion anymore, you must pay the price or forget about returning.
That is the new rule. The time has gone when people came here, made promises and broke them.
We try our best now to stop people from coming. But if you are stubborn and still enter, know this”
The figure raised a finger and pointed at Kayla’s chest.
“You must give us what we ask for. Or you will never walk out through the blood gate.”
Kayla felt the air shift. It was heavier now, colder.
Like something invisible had wrapped around her shoulders and chest. She could feel her own heartbeat.
She didn’t say anything immediately. Her throat was dry. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stay calm.
She didn’t come all this way, pass the wolves at the border, the mountain of bones, the Hall of Bargain, and even lie to Ana just to give up now.
Still standing, she took a slow step forward.
“What exactly do you want from me?” she asked quietly. “Tell me what the price is.”
The figure didn’t answer. Instead, it turned and moved to a low shelf near the fire pit.
From there, the figure pulled out a small glass jar. Kayla couldn’t see what was inside at first.
The figure held it up, and the light from the blue flames flickered against the glass.
What she saw inside made her chest tighten.
It was blood. Thick, golden-red blood. Not like normal blood.
This blood shimmered as though it had light trapped inside it.
"Oh, my goddess!" Kayla muttered under her breath.