Chapter 649: The Shape of What Should Have Been

Chapter 648: The Shape of What Should Have Been

Selene did not answer immediately.

For a moment, she only watched Sophia, her gaze steady and unreadable, as though she were weighing something far beyond the question itself.

Then she spoke.

"Dolion once told me something," she said quietly.

Sophia’s brows drew together slightly.

"It was when everything had already begun to unravel," she continued. "When he had started gathering allies. When ambition had already taken root too deeply to be undone."

Her voice softened, but not with warmth.

Sophia stayed silent, listening.

"He told me that unless I miraculously sent someone to stop him..." Selene went on, "then I would rot. And that he would make sure of it. He would take my place and be worshipped by all."

Sophia’s fingers curled slightly against the blanket.

Selene exhaled slowly.

"When the time came... when I chose to sacrifice myself," she said, "that thought returned to me. And I wondered... why not?"

Sophia frowned faintly.

"Why not do exactly that?" Selene said. "Why not send someone?"

The air in the room seemed to still.

"Someone who could put an end to him," she continued, "and to whatever would come after him."

A quiet weight settled into the space between them.

"And that," Selene finished softly, "is why I brought you into this."

Sophia let out a slow breath.

It wasn’t quite relief.

But it wasn’t tension either.

Sophia hesitated for a moment, then spoke again.

"There’s something I don’t understand, though," she said. "You said you knew someone would succeed Dolion."

Selene nodded once.

"I did."

Sophia’s eyes narrowed just slightly.

"But you also speak like it wasn’t supposed to be Victoria," she continued.

Selene nodded again.

"And the Nightshade Pack..." Sophia went on slowly, "they were supposed to be destroyed."

Another nod.

"Yes."

Sophia frowned deeply now.

"Then how does that make sense?" she asked. "Everything happening right now... it all connects back to one person."

Her voice tightened slightly.

"Victoria."

Silence lingered for a moment.

"Does that mean..." Sophia continued carefully, "that in what you originally saw... she wasn’t supposed to be the villain at all?"

Selene didn’t answer right away.

Instead, she studied Sophia for a long moment.

"You are very perceptive," she said softly.

Under any other circumstance, Sophia might have responded with something sharp or dry.

But now, she didn’t have the energy.

She just watched Selene, whose gaze softened.

"No," she said. "Victoria was not meant to become what she is now."

Sophia’s chest tightened.

"The one who was meant to succeed Dolion..." Selene continued, her voice calm but heavy, "was someone else entirely. Someone from the Nightshade Pack."

"Someone who would have survived the destruction of their pack," Selene went on. "Someone who would have carried that loss... and let it consume them, sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss until it was too late. Someone you are close to now."

Sophia stared, a frown forming as her heart began to beat faster.

"Who?" she asked, her voice quieter now.

Selene didn’t answer.

Instead, she turned her gaze slightly, as though the question itself was something she chose not to hold.

"The destruction of the Nightshade Pack..." Selene continued, "that, too, was not meant to come from Victoria."

"It was meant to come from someone within the Enclave."

"Someone consumed by greed," Selene added. "Someone who believed eliminating the Nightshade Pack would secure power."

"I believed it was for the best," she admitted. "Given what that bloodline carried... I did not oppose it."

Sophia didn’t like the sound of that.

"But things shifted," Selene continued.

Her voice lowered.

"Victoria changed first, when she discovered your gift."

Silence stretched between them.

"And then," Selene added, "everything changed again when you were four."

Sophia stilled.

Her fingers tightened slightly.

"When you intervened," Selene said. "When you saved Orion."

Sophia didn’t respond.

She just stared at the blanket in her lap.

"And from that moment," Selene continued, "fate began to fracture."

Sophia swallowed.

"...So everything after that," she said slowly, "is wrong?"

Selene tilted her head slightly.

"Not wrong," she replied.

"Different."

Sophia didn’t look convinced.

Selene watched her for a moment.

"The one who was meant to succeed Dolion..." she said quietly, and Sophia lifted her gaze to stare back at her,

"...was the blind woman who walks beside you. The one who is like a sister to you."

Sophia’s breath left her in a sharp, soundless exhale. She shook her head immediately in disbelief.

"No."

Selene didn’t look away.

"That was what was meant to happen," she said.

Sophia’s chest tightened painfully.

"No," she repeated, louder this time. "That’s not... you are talking about Brynhild, the same woman who took me in with open arms when I first arrived at the Nightshade Pack, the one who treats me like a sister, the same person who has to be the kindest person I have ever met, who does not even have an ounce of darkness in her, who would likely take a knife to the heart to protect me, because that is just how she is..."

"Child," Selene interrupted gently. "What I told you was what would have been, not what is now. You changing the fate of her people made her carve her own path too, as did everyone else."

Sophia’s lips parted slightly.

"And because of that," Selene added, "she is no longer bound to what she was meant to become."

Silence fell again.

This time, it was more suffocating.

Sophia stared at nothing for a long moment.

"If things have changed this much..." she said slowly, "then what happens now? What am I supposed to do to save them? To ensure fate doesn’t take them away from me?"

"The same as you have been doing," Selene replied. "You have never stopped fighting for those you love, and so you must continue to fight. You must correct that which is wrong, but you must also fight to stay on the path you have carved for yourself and for everyone you have come to love."

She paused.

"I have to go now," she added softly. "But there is something I must tell you before I leave."