Chapter 248: Episode 248.

The cold disappeared. For one beautiful, impossible heartbeat, everything disappeared with it.

There was no pain, chains, Dark Fae, Vaelor, Morrigan, or an endless palace built from black stone and older nightmares.

She felt only warmth.

Aire smiled before she even opened her eyes.

It worked. It actually worked. Her body continued falling through endless silver light, yet she no longer felt afraid.

She could still hear Alaric. He no longer spoke, but she still heard him in her heart. He had reached her.

The bond still pulsed faintly inside her chest like a heartbeat that wasn’t entirely her own.

Home.

The word echoed through every corner of her mind. She pictured the Wolf Realm. The towering mountains covered in flowers.

The forests that smelled of rain, and the rivers she’d crossed barefoot as a child.

She laughed in delight. It came out broken, soft, and wet with tears. Her heart almost exploded with excitement and positive anxiety.

"I’m coming..."

The silver light brightened.

Then, everything stopped. Everything stopped abruptly. The warmth vanished, and the bond went quiet.

Gravity returned all at once.

Aire screamed at the sudden feeling of dread. Her body dropped violently through empty air, and the silver light around her shattered into thousands of tiny fragments before disappearing completely.

Then, she hit something as she dropped. She slammed into it hard. Then she felt grass beneath her, and rolled through it.

Her shoulder struck the ground first, then her hip, and her back. She rolled down a gentle hill before finally coming to a stop beneath an enormous trees.

Silence greeted her. Absolute silence.

Aire lay there, gasping. Every muscle screamed in her after everything she’d just endured.

However, she didn’t care. She smiled when she looked around, and saw that she was completely out of the dark fae realm.

She had made it.

She laughed again. "I..." Her voice trembled with delight. "I did it!" She squealed, and forced herself upright.

Her silver hair fell around her face. She pushed it away with shaking hands, then she looked up.

Her smile immediately disappeared when she looked up. She took in her surrounding, and bile formed in her throat, as fear wrapped around her again.

This wasn’t the Wolf Realm.

She blinked once, then rapidly as if trying to correct her vision. The trees surrounding her were unlike anything she had ever seen.

The trees were impossibly tall. Their trunks shimmered faintly beneath pale sunlight. Not ordinary sunlight but a glowing one.

Leaves of silver and gold swayed gently overhead despite there being almost no wind. Tiny glowing creatures drifted lazily through the air like living stars.

Flowers opened and closed as though breathing, and the grass itself seemed almost alive beneath her hands.

Everything was.... Beautiful.

Too beautiful.

The Wolf Realm had always felt wild, and untamed.

This place felt perfect. Too perfect.

"No!" Her breathing quickened, as she screamed to her feet. "No..." She stood quickly.

So quickly that the world tilted. She caught herself against one of the silver trees.

"This isn’t..." She turned slowly, looking around. She searched, and waited.

"Alaric?" Her voice trembled with fear and disbelief. A thousand thoughts ran through her mind in seconds.

Only birds answered her call.

"Nate?!" She screamed.

Nothing responded.

"Xander?"

Still, silence greeted her.

Her smile collapsed completely.

"No." Panic returned all at once. "No." She spun in a full circle. "Nate? Alaric? Xander?!" her mind turned foggy. "Please don’t do this, Alaric. Alaric!!!!"

Nothing answered, or changed. The hill, the glowing forest, the crystal-clear streams, the flowers, and the light all remained the same.

Her breathing became uneven.

"I..." Her voice cracked. "I did what you said."

Tears blurred her vision. "I trusted you..."

She looked toward the empty forest. Her legs trembled, and tears spilled from her eyes. "Where are you?" She sniffed.

Nothing answered.

The silence hurt more than the Dark Fae ever had. This silence had arrived carrying hope, then stealing it.

She pressed both trembling hands against her face.

"Please take me back." She whispered, hoping Alaric could hear her. "This isn’t home."

A branch snapped at that moment.

Aire froze.

Someone was coming. Not one person, but several. She immediately backed away from the sound with instinct.

Months inside the Dark Realm had taught her that every unknown presence meant danger.

Voices drifted between the trees.

"...did you feel it?" A voice asked.

"I thought the sky opened." Another added.

"It did."

"The portal?"

"It has to be."

The voices were unfamiliar, gentle, and musical. The voices were nothing like wolves, or the Dark Fae.

Aire turned to run.

She made it three steps before something wrapped gently around her ankle. Soft glowing roots rose from the earth, held her in place without hurting her.

She stumbled, and more roots appeared around her feet. They were not restraining. They were simply preventing her from running.

Aire’s heart hammered.

"Stop." She pulled desperately.

They wouldn’t let go.

More footsteps approached, and golden light filtered between the trees. Then someone stepped into the clearing.

A young man. Tall, and elegant with hair as white as fresh snow. His ears tapered into delicate points.

Behind him came another, then another. Then an older woman wearing robes that shimmered like moonlight.

They stopped the moment they saw her. None of them spoke. They simply stared at her. They stared at her hair.

The oldest woman’s breathing stopped.

Her hand rose slowly to her mouth. "It..." She whispered. "It can’t be."

Another stepped forward.

"It is." He affirmed with his eyes wide.

"The prophecy..."

Aire’s pulse thundered at the me lion of a prophecy. Can people let her breath with every damn prophecy they always had to say about her?

She took another step back.

The glowing roots held her gently in place.

"I..." Her voice shook. "I’m looking for someone."

No one answered.

Their eyes never left her silver hair.

Finally, the oldest woman whispered words that made Aire’s blood run cold.

"Close the borders."

The younger fae immediately looked at her. "My Lady?"

"No one enters." She stared hard at Aire. "No one leaves."

She never stopped looking at Aire. "Inform His Majesty."

The forest grew impossibly quiet.

The woman’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Tell him..." She swallowed. "Tell him his lost blood has finally come home."

Aire stared at them, confused, and terrified.

She shook her head. "You’ve made a mistake." She began. "I don’t belong here." She said in one breath.

No one argued, or comforted her. They simply looked at her with a mixture of awe and respect.

Far away, somewhere beyond the endless glowing forest, ancient bells began ringing.