Chapter 2: Blindness and Fury
I didn't hear the door open again. I only felt the brutal pull on my arm.
Aric Varyn, the Lunar King, didn't ask me to come with him; he didn't offer comfort or persuasion. He simply exerted his will. His grip on my wrist tightened until his strong fingers encircled the bone, and he hauled me off the cold, hard floor of my prison like a piece of refuse.
The instant he pulled me away from the wall, the world tilted. After years of existing only in the claustrophobic darkness, my balance was gone. I stumbled, my knees giving out, but his grip was unrelenting. He wasn't walking; he was marching, dragging my weak, resisting body up the narrow, crumbling staircase.
"He touches us without permission. He claims us. FIGHT IT."
The Echo was a torrent of sheer, destructive rage in my head. The voice was so loud it drowned out the scraping of my worn shoes against the stone steps. Every nerve ending Aric's skin touched was screaming—half of it mine, raw fear; the other half belonging to The Echo, pure, cold fury.
"Stop! Let go of me!" I finally managed to yell, the sound weak and useless against the stone walls. My throat burned.
Aric ignored me. His spine was ramrod straight, his pace measured, but fast. The only acknowledgment he gave was a slight, subtle shift in his aura. The pine and snow scent intensified, taking on a heavier, sharper edge—the scent of an Alpha who would not be disobeyed.
"Silence," he commanded, his voice muffled by the stairwell, yet it echoed inside my hollow chest.
And then, the light.
It wasn't a beam anymore; it was an ocean.
We crested the top of the stairwell, and Aric simply pushed aside a heavy slab of broken concrete that must have served as a secondary hatch. He didn't look down at me; his eyes were fixed on the distance, already scanning the surrounding terrain.
I was released. I fell forward onto dirt and damp leaves, gasping, but the ground didn't matter. All that mattered was the sheer, brutal intensity of the sky.
I hadn't seen the sun in over a decade.
It was blinding, violent, and impossibly loud. The light was a physical weight, pressing down on my exposed skin, burning the backs of my eyelids even when they were screwed shut. It felt like being immersed in fire, yet it wasn't warm; it was searing heat mixed with the deep, penetrating chill of the outside air.
My head began to spin immediately. The world was too big, too bright, too open. The silence of my chamber was replaced by a thousand assaults: the rustle of leaves, the chirp of a bird, the heavy breathing of Aric a few feet away, the rush of wind that smelled like distance and freedom I couldn't bear.
I started to hyperventilate, shallow, tearing gasps that did nothing to fill my lungs. My hands instinctively clawed at the dirt, searching for the familiar cold boundary of a wall, a corner, anything to hide in.
"We are exposed. We are vulnerable. We must retreat!" The Echo shrieked, panic fueling its mental strength. "Use the rage! Burn the light!"
My body felt disconnected. The terror was overwhelming, a tidal wave that washed away the last shreds of my fragile sanity. I couldn't control the shaking that started in my fingers and quickly consumed my entire torso.
It wasn't just fear of the sun; it was the terror of being seen. After so long unseen, the simple act of standing exposed felt like a profound violation.
Aric's huge shadow fell over me again. He must have realized this wasn't mere distress; this was a total system breakdown.
He crouched down, forcing himself into my line of vision. He had a harsh, angular face, severe cheekbones, and a jawline carved out of granite. But when his gaze met mine, something shifted. The cold, strategic King was momentarily replaced by a raw, startled male.
"Kaira. Look at me," he commanded, his voice lower this time, almost soothing, trying to use the dominant Alpha tone for comfort instead of compliance. "You are out. It's over. Focus on my voice."
He reached out slowly, tentatively this time, but my body already knew the danger of his touch.
"Don't touch me!" I screamed, the sound finally finding true strength—a feral, broken thing that shocked even me. I scrambled backward, twisting my ankle on a root, collapsing back against the lip of the hole I'd just been dragged from.
The Echo seized the opportunity. It didn't just speak; it took.
A lightning-strike of pure, venomous resentment flooded my mind. It was a feeling so massive and foreign that it nearly eclipsed my own existence. My eyes snapped open, fixed not on Aric, but past him, on the vast, hostile stretch of the silver-leafed forest.
In that horrifying instant, the world went silent. I felt the clenching in my chest, the way my lungs ceased their frantic activity, and the unnatural, ice-cold stillness that replaced my panic.
I was no longer trembling. I was still. And still was dangerous.
"Kill him," The Echo hissed, the command now an irresistible physical urge, not just a whisper. "He is the jailor's son. He seeks to cage us again. Take his power."
I was aware of my hand raising—the one still scarred and dirty—and pointing, a shaking finger directed at Aric's broad chest. But the words that left my mouth weren't my own; they were The Echo's layered, resonant growl, heavy with centuries of dust.
"Y-you… are… not… my… King," the voice choked out, dripping with absolute contempt. My own consciousness was a terrified passenger, watching the creature inside me try to drive.
Aric froze. His facade of controlled calm finally cracked. His wolf, Fenrir, was instantly visible in the icy blue of his eyes, which flared with a golden light. His scent, the protective Alpha scent, spiked, laced now with unmistakable confusion and deep, agonizing rejection.
He didn't understand why his mate was looking at him with the pure, primal hatred of a prey animal cornered by a hunter.
He took a step closer, slowly, deliberately closing the distance I had desperately tried to maintain. "What is wrong with you? Who taught you to fear the sun?"
His question—so simple, so ignorant of the monstrous complexity of my life—was the final trigger.
The sheer weight of the eleven forgotten years, the loneliness, the trauma I couldn't remember but whose scars covered my body, crashed down on me. I saw my broken reflection in the King's brilliant, terrified eyes, and I understood what I was: a ruin. A broken thing haunted by a shadow that wanted to kill the one person destined to protect me.
The conscious fight to keep The Echo from taking over, coupled with the sensory agony of the outside world, was too much.
My lungs burned. My vision blurred, the vibrant green of the forest warping into a meaningless wash of color. The relentless pulse of the sunlight against my skin felt like a physical hammerblow.
"No! We must be free!" The Echo screamed, trying to force my body up to fight.
But my body, already starved and exhausted, made the choice for me. It simply gave up.
The world went dark, but not with the familiar, comforting darkness of my chamber. This darkness was sudden, absolute, and accompanied by the rush of blood emptying from my head.
I felt myself falling, my useless limbs disconnecting from my brain. I heard Aric Varyn swear, a thick, guttural curse, just before his massive body lunged.
The last sensation I registered was being caught. Not harshly, but securely. My cheek found the solid, muscular warmth of his chest, and I inhaled a deep, final lungful of his scent—pine, snow, and now, fear and something agonizingly close to grief.
And then, nothing. I was unconscious, caught securely in the protective arms of the King who claimed me, while the creature inside my mind reveled in the temporary silence.