Chapter 696: It’s Not Real

Sophia stood at the edge of the hall, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she could physically hold in the disgust rising through her chest. It did not work. Nothing could have worked in that moment because the words still echoed around her, bouncing off the walls and settling into her bones like something toxic.

These people were supposed to be rulers.

The Enclave. The body that stood for what was right. The institution that was meant to watch over their kind, to represent them, to protect them when the world turned cruel.

But these people...they spoke with cruelty in their voices as they discussed taking lives that were not their own. They talked about the Nightshade Pack like it was a problem to be eliminated, not a community of people who had suffered and survived and built something worth protecting.

And what annoyed Sophia most—what truly made her blood burn—was the way they spoke as though the Enclave had ever done anything to help.

The Nightshade Pack had been branded traitors. They had been driven from their homes, hunted across regions, forced to settle in Nirvana where the cold killed as readily as any blade. They had lost parents, children, siblings, friends. They had lost everything.

And the Enclave had watched.

When the Nightshade Pack had begged for assistance, the Enclave did nothing. They only stood by and watched.

But now that the Nightshade Pack refused to bow?

Now that they refused to hand over their resources, their knowledge, their very survival to the same people who had condemned them?

Now they deserved to die?

Sophia’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

She watched the men and women around the table nod in agreement, watched them gesture sharply at one another as they debated the best way to destroy an entire pack. They spoke about it like they were discussing the weather—like the lives hanging in the balance meant nothing at all.

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to step out of the shadows and tell them exactly what she thought of their righteous anger, their convenient amnesia, their willingness to condemn innocent people for the crime of survival.

But she could not.

Because this was a vision, and they could not hear her, and none of this had happened yet.

So she stood there, silent and unseen, and let the disgust wash over her in waves.

Victoria’s voice cut through the noise again, smooth as ever.

"Then we are in agreement?"

Around the table, heads nodded.

The vision shifted before Sophia could spiral further.

The hall dissolved.

The cold stone walls melted into smoke.

And Sophia was standing in the Nightshade Pack.

Or what remained of it.

The first thing she noticed was the wall.

It had fallen.

The gates that had always stood as a barrier between the pack and the dangers of Nirvana lay shattered, their iron bands twisted and broken.

The second thing she noticed was the fire.

It spread across the compound in hungry waves, climbing the walls of houses she had walked past every day, consuming rooftops and memories with equal indifference. The snow that had once blanketed the ground in peaceful white was now churned and blackened, stained with soot and ash and darker things she did not want to name.

The third thing she noticed was the bodies.

They lay scattered everywhere. Across the pathways, across the thresholds of homes that would never open again. Some were still. Some moved weakly, their hands reaching for nothing, their mouths open in sounds she could not hear. Blood soaked through the snow in wide, ugly patches, turning the white ground red.

Sophia’s breath caught in her throat.

*It is not real,* Neoma said quickly.

"I know."

*This has not happened.*

"I know."

But her voice cracked on the second word, and she could not make it stop.

Laughter rang out somewhere nearby—sharp, cruel, the sound of people who enjoyed what they were doing. Tears answered it from another direction, softer but no less painful, the sound of grief too large to be contained.

Sophia turned slowly, her eyes scanning the chaos, but then she saw Joren.

He stood near the square, his back to her, his shoulders shaking. He was holding something—someone—in his arms, cradling them against his chest like they were the most precious thing in the world.

Sophia moved closer without meaning to.

Her feet carried her through the smoke and the ash until she could see what he was holding.

Dren.

His eyes were open wide. His chest was still. Blood soaked through his clothes, staining Joren’s hands where they pressed uselessly against the wound that had taken his life.

"You can’t go too. Everyone is gone, don’t go too," Joren sobbed.

Tears poured down his face in steady streams, cutting tracks through the soot and blood that coated his skin. And Sophia felt something inside her crack at the sight.

"Joren," she whispered.

He could not hear her.

She knew he could not hear her.

But she said his name anyway, because saying it felt better than standing there in silence.

And then she saw it.

The Trihydra.

It emerged from the smoke just ahead of Joren, its three heads weaving slowly as it surveyed the destruction around it. Its scales gleamed darkly in the firelight, wet with blood.

Joren was too consumed by his grief to notice.

Sophia knew it was a vision. She knew it wasn’t real. She knew that, but she couldn’t help the sound that escaped her.

"Joren, run!"

But he did not move.

And no matter how much she screamed, he did not move, and then the Trihydra struck.

One of its heads lunged forward, jaws opening wide, and Sophia watched as it closed around him. The sound that followed was a sickening crunch.

But there was nothing Sophia could do except watch.

*Sophia,* Neoma called out softly. *Breathe. It’s not real. We can prevent this. It hasn’t happened yet.*