Chapter 262 262: The genesis of the problem...
Lyla The clearing disappeared, replaced by a different scene...
I was standing in an open field. It was day, yet the moon was shining and full. In the centre of the field stood a woman dressed in what seemed like mourning clothes. She was singing, too. The sblue energy surrounded her, but there was something different about it... something dark.
Beside her lay two lifeless bodies. When I moved closer, I gasped with shock when I realised it was Thames and Rian and they were both dead. Their faces were peaceful in death and their hands were crossed over their chests, but there was something wrong about seeing them this way.
Something that made my soul cry out in protest.
When I looked at Neriah, her face was pale and streaked with tears and her hands were trembling as she continued to sing - as if she had no choice. And then her eyes met mine. For a moment, tfroze.
Her eyes widened in recognition. I saw my face in hers. Our eyes reflected the simage, and then her lips began to move, whispering something I couldn't hear. But her expression - gods, her expression was pure agony.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtI strained my ears, wishing I could hear what she was saying. Her lips formed the words again. As I opened my mouth to scream out, perhaps to tell her I couldn't hear what she was saying...
"Lyla?" A voice snappedout of the trance. The blue energy dissipated like mist in the morning sunlight as my feet settled firmly back on the ground. I gasped, my knees buckling as I collapsed onto the damp earth.
The energy leftinstantly breathless and trembling. The song had stopped too.
The vision... what the hell was that? I clutched my chest, struggling to steady my breathing, my body was still thrumming from the raw power that had coursed through me.
A soft sound madewhip around.
Someone was watching me.
A familiar figure stood at the edge of the clearing, hands clasped before her. Her face was a mixture of shock and wonder.
Nanny.
My heart lurched.
I scrambled to my feet, unsteady but desperate. "Nanny!" I cried, joy and relief flooding throughat the sight of the familiar face.
She didn't move as I rushed toward her, throwing my arms around her fragile frbreathing in her comforting scent of herbs.
"Lyla," she murmured, her arms tightening aroundbriefly before she pulled back to look at my face. The warmth of her presence grounded me, but something about the way she stiffened madepull back.
She was staring at me, a strange look in her eyes-something between awe and fear.
"What is it?" I asked, suddenly uneasy.
Slowly, she reached out and touched my hair, fingers brushing against the strands as if searching for something. Then, a smile slowly began to spread across her face.
"The silver streak," she said softly, wonder in her voice. "It's back and brighter than I have ever seen it." I blinked. "What?" My hand flew to my hair, finding the distinctive streak that had markedfrom birth. The sstreak that had faded to almost nothing after I'd lost my moonsinging ability. I pulled a strand forward to see it-rich, silver against my otherwise brown hair, now shot through with what looked like threads of silver.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmShe gently turned my face toward the dying light of the sun. "The brown streak in your hair. It has reappeared. And it's... shining." "What does it mean, Nanny?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "What's happening to me?" Nanny's eyes grew serious, her gaze shifting to the clearing where I'd just performed my song.
"It means, my dear, that the prophecy is coming to pass." She took my hands in hers, her grip surprisingly strong. "You're remembering who you truly are, Lyla. And not a moment too soon." A shiver ran down my spine at her words, the echo of my vision-Thames and Rian, lifeless on those stone altars -flashing through my mind.
"I saw something, Nanny," I said urgently. "In a trance. I saw Neriah, and she was singing over Thames and Rian. They looked... they looked dead." I paused, remembering that Nanny may not know who Rian and Thames maybe but when I turned to her, her face had paled and her grip on my hands tightened.
"Do you know who they are?" I asked her looking at her fearfully.
"Then we have even less tthan I feared," she whispered. "Come, child. There's much I need to tell you, and not here. Not where others might hear." "What are you talking about?" She stared atfor a few second ds before looking away. "Lyla," she started. "I see death coming between two people who are closest to your heart. Mother Liora must have mentioned one of them to you right?" I shook my head, as the hair at the back of my neck stood. "Mother Liora mentioned that when it is time, I have to kill, Nathan, else he would kill Ramsey and that he's a tool for the dark one." As I said the words, my voice shook. "But I don't think I can do it, Nanny," tears rolled down my eyes. "I and Nathan may have our differences but I cannot kill him. There must be a way." "There is no other way except that, Lyla," Nanny touched my shoulder. "Except you want a repeat of what happened years ago. People will die. Neriah killed her entire pack... she's the reason why Corvus turned the dead guardians into Ferals." The tears at the back of my throat ceased immediately as I stared at Nanny. "What are you talking about? In my visions, Neriah was asked to marry the son of the Lycan Leader Rian to protect her..." "To protect her from Corvus," Nanny said a little too forcefully. "Don't you see it, Lyla, everything that Corvus told you was a lie? Corvus went against the blood oath that bounds him as a Shadow warrior. He becgreedy and went against his oath by burning the temple, in the guise that he was saving Omegas from being sacrificed when he was the one who wanted to harvest their pheromones for his evil use." "I don't understand," I stared at Nanny wide-eyed. "By harvesting pheromones, what do you mean?"
"As a Shadow warrior, he must have seen the potential of using the pheromone of an Omega, it peaks every full moon and a guardian is called to channel the powers of this pheromone back to the Moon Goddess. Only guardians could do it. They use an orb and store these pheromones which they also use for healing. You see Guardians are not born with wolves, they're practically humans with special abilities and their worship is to the stars. With the powers gotten from these pheromones, they can bring dead things to life and make life too." I wasn't interested in all of those antilogies, I just wanted to know how Neriah ended up killing a whole bunch of people. "How did Neriah lose control?" "Rian and Thames were fighting. Corvus had poisoned his heart so much and there was a fierce fight between him and Rian. He killed Rian in the process using Corvus's help of course but before Rian died, he retaliated and killed him too. The vision you saw of Neriah crying between both dead bodies shows when she was trying to restore them." "How did she know she can?" "Before it got to that stage, Corvus had already told her everything about her power. He wanted to use Neriah as a means to get back to the Lycans. He wanted supremacy, he was bitter because he was driven away. So Neriah was his last resort." "So, how did she kill everyone?" "In her bid to wake both Rian and Thames and because of her inability to control her moonsinging powers, she turned everyone into a feral by first killing them. After she killed them, she tried to bring them back to life but couldn't restore them to their original state... which she could. I'm sure she can because there's no way, Corvus would still be after you if he doesn't know that there's a remedy." I stared at Nanny wondering if this was a folktale and not reality.
"He turned to dark forces, he surrendered his soul. When the massacre happened and the Auréans becFeral, the Moon Goddess twisted the blood moon oath against moon oath him, binding him to eternal suffering and creating you as his enemy. She made Neriah see through him and she was able to seize all of his powers and had them locked. But of course, he was always one step ahead. To safeguard everything, she deposited her powers in her sword and buried it in the Northern Forest, originally hto Neriah and Corvus' love for Neriah turned into hatred and his grief into vengeance." "But I thought they said Ferals were werewolves who got greedy..."
"Neriah's father did," Nanny nodded. "It was his greed that caused all of this problem we know today. He was enticed by the Lycan Leader into performing blood sacrifice to the ve white Moon throne. The seat of the Lycan Leader originally belonged to the White Lake Pack of the White Mountain Region and was like that for years. But with the blood sacrifices, the White Moon Throne suddenly choose someone from the White Moon Pack for the first time. That was the genesis of all these troubles." mmMwWLlilofiflo&1 mmMwWLlilofiflo&1 mmMwWLliI0fiflO&1 mmMwWLlilofiflo&1 mmMwWLliIofiflo&1 mmMwWLlilofiflo&1