Page 23 of Shifting Hearts

NINE

Kieran

I ’ve seen power before. I’ve wielded it, broken under it, and buried it.

But this—this is hers.

Raven glows like moonfire, her skin laced with light, her breath catching as something ancient unfurls inside her. I hold her tighter, but it’s not protection she needs. It’s witness . She’s becoming something the world tried to erase.

And the house knows.

The sigils carved into the stone walls ignite, casting shadows that dance like spirits. The air thickens with memory, blood, betrayal, prophecy. I feel it in my mark, the one that binds me to her. It burns.

The chamber hums with power, but it’s not Raven’s awakening that makes my blood run cold.

It’s the voice.

The Brotherhood’s warning isn’t just a whisper through the walls; it’s a ritual invocation, carved into the bones of this place long before I was born. And it’s directed at me .

“The Echo has awakened. The seal is broken. The exile ends.”

“She is not yours to claim.”

“She is the reckoning.”

I clench my jaw, the words slicing through me like blades. I know that voice. I helped write those laws. I enforced them, I led them.

I am the Alpha of the Forsaken Brotherhood, and I just broke our oldest commandment.

Raven stiffens in my arms. Her eyes, still glowing, meet mine, and I see it; fear, yes, but also defiance. The kind that doesn’t beg for mercy. The kind that remembers. She doesn’t know what this means. Not fully. Not yet.

But I do.

The Brotherhood will come. Not to question me. Not to strip my title.

They’ll come to kill her.

Because if the prophecy is true, if she is the Echo, the flame that awakens the old power, then she’s not just dangerous.

She’s the end of everything we were built to protect.

I step in front of her, instinct overriding reason. My mark burns, the chamber trembles, and I feel the weight of every oath I’ve ever sworn pressing down on me.

I was raised to uphold the code, but I’ll burn it to ash before I let them take her.

The warning fades, but the silence it leaves behind is heavier than any threat.

Then the house shifts.

Stone grinds against stone. Dust rains from the ceiling. A wall that’s stood for centuries splits down the center, revealing a passage I’ve only heard whispered about in the old rites, The Hollow Vault.

Raven gasps, her glow flickering as the air thickens with ancient magic. I step forward, heart pounding, and the scent hits me first; iron, leather, ash. The smell of war.

Inside, the vault is lined with relics. Not just weapons, artifacts . Blades etched with runes that burn cold blue. Cloaks woven from shadow-thread. Vials of venom harvested from the Wyrm beneath the mountain. And at the center, two sets of armor.

One forged in obsidian and silver—mine. The Alpha’s mantle.

The other... hers.

It’s unlike anything I’ve seen. Sleek, dark, and pulsing faintly with the same energy that woke the chamber. It’s not Brotherhood-forged. It’s older. Wilder. As if the house knew she’d come, as if it had been waiting.

I reach for my gear, the weight familiar, grounding. But when Raven steps toward hers, the vault reacts. The runes flare. The walls tremble. And I realize, this isn’t just a sanctuary.

It’s a declaration.

We were never running.

Not from the Brotherhood, not from prophecy, not from the fire waking in her veins.

The vault didn’t open because we were afraid. It opened because we were ready.

Raven steps into the chamber like she was born for it. Her fingers brush the armor, and the runes flare, not in warning, but in welcome. The metal hums with her pulse as the shadows bend toward her like they remember her name.

She turns to me, eyes fierce, voice steady. “We were never meant to hide.”

I nod, fastening the mantle across my shoulders. The weight is familiar. The purpose is new.

“We were always going to burn the world.”

The house seals behind us. The chamber goes silent.

And somewhere deep in the bones of the mountain, the Brotherhood stirs.

Let them come.

We’re not the end.

We’re the reckoning.

I stand in the vault, the air thick with dust and memory. The armor fits like it always has; obsidian plates molded to my frame, silver etchings pulsing faintly with the blood magic that sealed them centuries ago. But it feels heavier now. Not from wear, from the truth.

Raven moves beside me, her fingers grazing the edge of her own armor, and the runes flare in response. The house recognizes her. Welcomes her. Chooses her.

And that’s the problem.

I built this place. I carved the Brotherhood from the ashes of a war that nearly devoured us all. I gathered the forsaken, the broken, the hunted, and gave them purpose. I wrote the Code of Binding to protect what was left of our kind. I taught them discipline, loyalty, and sacrifice.

But somewhere along the way, the code became a cage.

They stopped protecting the wild, and they started fearing it. They hunted those who didn’t fit the mold. Silenced prophecy, exiled the gifted, and now they wanted to kill the one thing that could restore balance.

Raven.

She doesn’t just carry power. She is power. Unshaped, untamed, unclaimed by any law but fate. They see her as a threat because she doesn’t bow, because she doesn’t belong to them.

But she belongs to me, and I belong to her.

I look at the relics lining the walls; blades I forged, oaths I swore, names I buried. These men are my brothers. Some I raised, some I bled beside, some I buried with my own hands. They are my family.

And I’m about to become their enemy.

Because Raven’s awakening didn’t just expose the prophecy.

It exposed me.

The Alpha who forgot what he was fighting for, the founder who let fear shape the future, the man who built a fortress and called it salvation, when all it did was keep the fire out.

I turn to her, and she’s watching me with eyes that glow like stormlight. She doesn’t know the full cost yet, but she will.

And when the Brotherhood comes, when they call me traitor, heretic, fool, I’ll stand between them and her.

Not because I hate them, but because I remember what love is supposed to protect.

I don't hate the Brotherhood. I love it. That’s what makes this betrayal so brutal. But love without truth is just another chain, and Raven is the key that breaks it.