Chapter 85: Chapter 85 – The Voices That Should Not Exist

Chapter 85 – The Voices That Should Not Exist

Liora’s POV

I should have been sleeping.

The healers certainly thought so.

Kael thought so too, although he had been careful not to say it directly.

Ever since my awakening, everyone seemed to be watching me for signs that something was wrong. The irony was that something was wrong. I just wasn’t sure how to explain it when I couldn’t explain it to myself first.

The fortress had finally gone quiet for the night.

Moonlight spilled through the windows of my chamber, casting pale shadows across the floor while the fire crackled softly in the hearth. Normally I found the sound comforting.

Tonight it only made the silence feel heavier.

I sat on the edge of the bed with a blanket wrapped loosely around my shoulders, staring out the window at the dark courtyard below.

Sleep wasn’t coming.

Every time I closed my eyes, my mind returned to the same things.

The awakening.

The glowing scars.

The wolves kneeling without understanding why.

The fear in people’s eyes.

The guilt in Kael’s.

A slow breath left my lungs.

I was tired.

Not physically.

That was the strange part.

For the first time in months, my body wasn’t exhausted.

No soreness.

No weakness.

No lingering damage from training.

Nothing.

It felt wrong.

I had become so used to pain that its absence felt unnatural.

My hand drifted to my stomach unconsciously.

The movement had become a habit.

The pregnancy had changed everything.

Even before the awakening.

The bond with Kael had gone quiet because of it.

My powers had changed because of it.

Now every impossible thing seemed connected to it somehow.

I lowered my gaze.

"What are you?" I whispered softly.

The question wasn’t really directed at the child.

It was directed at everything.

At my life.

At the awakening.

At whatever I was becoming.

The room remained silent.

For a moment, I almost laughed at myself.

Then I heard it.

Not with my ears.

Inside.

A shift.

A presence.

My body immediately went still.

The sensation wasn’t new.

I had felt it before.

The first voice.

The one that appeared before my awakening.

The one I convinced myself was connected to my abilities.

Only this felt different.

Stronger.

Clearer.

And most importantly...

It wasn’t alone.

My heartbeat slowed.

I closed my eyes carefully.

Listening.

The awareness sharpened immediately.

There.

Not one presence.

Several.

Quiet.

Watching.

Existing somewhere beyond thought but beneath consciousness.

A chill moved through me.

I should have been afraid.

Instead I felt strangely focused.

The way I felt before a vision.

The way I felt when my abilities were trying to show me something important.

"What is this?" I whispered.

The presences shifted.

Not answering.

Reacting.

Like they had noticed me noticing them.

My fingers tightened around the blanket.

For several moments, nobody spoke.

Then something brushed against my awareness.

Soft.

Ancient.

Patient.

The sensation reminded me of opening a door and realizing someone had already been standing on the other side waiting.

My throat tightened.

The first voice came.

Not words exactly.

Recognition.

Awareness.

Then another presence stirred nearby.

Then another.

The realization made my stomach twist.

There were at least four.

Maybe more.

I couldn’t tell.

Each felt slightly different.

Separate.

Distinct.

Not fragments of the same thing.

Individuals.

The thought should have sounded insane.

Unfortunately, it didn’t.

Not anymore.

Not after everything else.

I swallowed slowly.

"Who are you?"

The question lingered.

Silence followed.

Then suddenly two of the presences moved closer.

Not physically.

Mentally.

The moment they did, something inside me reacted.

A strange familiarity.

I frowned.

That made no sense.

I had never heard these voices before.

I had never felt these presences before.

Yet somehow they felt recognizable.

Like meeting someone for the first time and immediately knowing their face.

My pulse quickened.

I focused harder.

The feeling intensified.

Not familiar to me.

Familiar to—

My breath caught.

Kael.

The realization hit so unexpectedly that I sat upright.

No.

That wasn’t possible.

Yet the sensation remained.

The connection was unmistakable.

Those two presences carried something that reminded me of the bond.

Not identical.

Related.

My hand immediately moved to my stomach.

The room suddenly felt much smaller.

The bond between Kael and me pulsed faintly in response, as if confirming the connection.

My heart began beating faster.

"What does that mean?"

Nobody answered immediately.

The presences remained calm.

Watching.

Waiting.

Then one of them finally spoke.

The voice wasn’t masculine.

Wasn’t feminine.

Wasn’t old.

Wasn’t young.

It simply existed.

And unlike before, the words arrived clearly.

"We’ve done this before."

The blanket slipped from my fingers.

Every muscle in my body locked.

A thousand thoughts collided at once.

Done what before?

Who was we?

How many times?

The questions came faster than I could process them.

The presence retreated slightly after speaking, as though it had already said enough.

My breathing became uneven.

This wasn’t a vision.

It wasn’t one of my abilities.

It wasn’t a memory.

It was a conversation.

A real one.

The terrifying certainty settled over me piece by piece.

Whatever these voices were...

They knew things.

Things I didn’t.

Things they expected me to understand eventually.

My hand remained pressed against my stomach.

The awareness beneath my palm felt different now.

Not larger.

Not stronger.

Just impossible to ignore.

I thought back to everything that had happened since the pregnancy.

The changes.

The bond.

The awakening.

The first voice.

The growing sense that something inside me had been waiting for this moment long before I understood any of it.

Slowly, a realization began taking shape.

At first I rejected it immediately.

Then it refused to leave.

Because no matter how impossible it sounded, every path led back to the same conclusion.

The child.

Everything led back to the child.

The room suddenly felt colder.

I stared down at my stomach.

My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it.

The voices remained silent now.

Watching.

Waiting.

As though they had already revealed enough for one night.

I swallowed hard.

Because for the first time since discovering I was pregnant, I wasn’t wondering what kind of future my child would have.

I was wondering what my child actually was.

And as that thought settled heavily into my chest, one terrifying realization followed close behind it.

The thing growing inside me...

Wasn’t just a child.