Chapter 2795: Story 2796: The Mother Beneath the Ashes

Nobody answered.

The man stood in the doorway, his scarred hands hanging loosely at his sides. Behind him, the little house flickered between warmth and ruin, its windows filling with black smoke.

Ronan slowly rose.

“You’re not our father.”

The man’s tired eyes softened. “You used to say that whenever I returned from war.”

“I remember you dying.”

“You remember killing me.”

Ronan’s sword trembled.

Lyra stepped beside him. “If you’re truly their father, tell us what happened to their mother.”

The man’s gaze shifted toward her.

For one heartbeat, his gentle expression vanished. Beneath his skin, golden letters crawled like worms, forming names Lyra recognized from the sea of forgotten souls.

“You should not have been born,” he whispered.

Seratha strained against her chains. “Don’t look at her!”

The man smiled sadly.

“Still protecting your greatest mistake, Seratha?”

The First Mother screamed as the black chains tightened around her shadow. Her body split into red mist, then reformed, her face twisted with pain.

Ronan charged.

His sword struck the doorway, releasing a blast of crimson energy. The man barely raised one hand before the attack stopped in midair.

“You have become strong,” he said. “But you still mistake violence for freedom.”

He closed his fingers.

Ronan’s sword shattered.

The pieces dissolved into red sparks and flew toward the man’s chest.

Lyra released an arrow from her broken bow.

It should have been impossible. The bowstring was gone, the weapon cracked in half. Yet silver light formed between her fingers, shaping itself into an arrow made of names.

The man turned.

The arrow pierced his shoulder.

For the first time, he cried out.

The entire house shook.

“Who gave you that power?” he demanded.

Lyra stared at her glowing hands. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

He reached into his wound and pulled out the silver arrow. The names written upon it escaped like tiny birds, circling Lyra before disappearing into her chest.

“You were the first to hear your mother’s final words,” he continued. “You were the last to see what your brother did.”

Ronan looked at Lyra. “What is he talking about?”

She shook her head, fighting the memories gathering behind her eyes.

Then she heard the lullaby again.

A woman’s voice.

A burning house.

Seven children crying.

And a mother standing before them, holding open a door while darkness devoured everything behind her.

Lyra suddenly understood something terrible.

“The woman in the house wasn’t killed,” she whispered.

The man went still.

“She became the door.”

Seratha stopped struggling.

The man lowered his head, and tears of golden fire slipped down his cheeks.

“Yes,” he said. “Your mother sacrificed herself to imprison what lived inside me.”

The house behind him collapsed into ashes.

“And when Ronan killed me, he broke her prison.”

A deafening crack split the golden doorway.

From inside the man’s chest came a second voice—ancient, hungry, and unmistakably female.

“Children, run. Your father is no longer alone.”