Her mind felt as though it was spiraling when the realization hit her, even if it was a breath too late.
She gritted her teeth, not knowing how to feel. Selene had not tracked her through the city, nor through witnesses or wards tied to the so-called authority she stood for. She had followed the limiter itself, the same device meant to restrain her, guide her, and supposedly protect everyone involved. That truth settled coldly in her chest, not as betrayal, but as something far more unsettling.
It felt as though she had been prepared or was preparing for something, either before or after she met her.
Her fingers curled slowly at her sides as she lifted her gaze, meeting Selene's eyes head-on. There was no anger there, nor was there any sign of panic, only a tightly leashed intensity that spoke of calculations made long before tonight.
"You knew," she said quietly, not accusing nor pleading. "You always knew this could happen."
Selene did not answer immediately. The silence stretched, heavy with meaning between the two, until the woman, her sister, laughed under her breath.
"Oh, she knew," she said with satisfaction. "She just hoped you would probably stay comfortable long enough not to ask the wrong questions and for her to truly understand and figure out her position."
Selene's jaw tightened. "This was not your move to make."
"No," the woman replied calmly. "It was hers. You just delayed the moment she realized it, that something was off, but you played well and she seems to trust you."
The chamber pulsed again, not violently this time, but rhythmically, as if responding to the tension rather than escalating it. The runes dimmed slightly, settling into a low, watchful glow. Something ancient beneath the stone had shifted from alarm to interest.
She felt it immediately, not the whisper she had heard before, but she felt something completely focused on her, attention.
It brushed against her awareness like a vast eye opening somewhere far below, patient and curious, no longer content to observe from a distance. The limiter flared in protest, heat lancing through her core, and she hissed softly, bending forward for half a second before catching herself.
Selene moved instinctively, half a step toward her, blade lowering without conscious intent. "You're destabilizing the chamber," she snapped at her sister. "End this now."
The woman tilted her head, studying the girl instead. "She's doing that herself. Or rather… she's being pull toward something or the other way around. Maybe it is what you think from under the city or... Maybe it is something else entirely."
That made Selene still and her eyes narrowed in thought.
"What do you mean?" Selene asked, her voice dangerously controlled.
The woman's gaze flicked to the runes, then to the walls, before finally going back to her. "This relay was built to test compatibility, not transport. It was never meant to be activated by bloodlines alone." Her eyes gleamed faintly. "It responds to convergence."
The man in robes sucked in a sharp breath from the shadows. "That's impossible. Those systems were sealed after the fracture."
"And yet," the woman said lightly, "here we are."
Her heart pounded as the air thickened, not with hostility, but with weight, as if this world itself had decided she was suddenly more important than everything else in the room. The limiter vibrated sharply, then steadied, its resistance no longer absolute but adaptive.
She straightened slowly, ignoring the lingering burn, and something in her posture changed. She felt a more dominant part of herself or the creature within her, was being stirred.
"So this is why I feel pulled," she murmured. "Not only toward power, but for some reason, toward places like this, that held a deep history with the world itself."
Selene's eyes widened fractionally before she masked it. "You feel the network that flows within the lands."
She nodded once. "I don't hear it like the whisper. I… understand it. Pieces at least."
The woman laughed again, delighted now. "Oh, Selene. You didn't just bring a problem into your city." Her gaze softened as it settled on the girl. "You brought in a key or maybe our doom, that is going to draw the wrong attention."
The word echoed unpleasantly in her mind and Selene scoffed.
"You just want to see where this goes, stir trouble and maybe even take her for yourself, but I am not you, I don't want to unlock something I can't control," she said, voice steady despite the rising pressure.
"Good and maybe you are right, but do not act like we are saints and do not think this is the end of this right," Selene replied instantly. "Because control is not what this requires."
Both women turned to look at her then, truly look at her, and for the first time she realized something unsettling.
They were not arguing over her fate, they were arguing over timing and something no one understood as well as whatever grudge they had going on, which she wanted to know about.
The chamber trembled again, deeper this time, a slow resonance that rolled through stone and bone alike. Somewhere beyond the walls, wards flared and reset, cascading in patterns that spoke of systems compensating for an anomaly they could not isolate.
She felt the pull shift direction.
Not inward, but outward.
Her eyes widened as awareness expanded beyond the chamber, beyond the city's layers, touching distant nodes, and something far older that slept beneath all of it, vast and patient and very much awake now.
Selene swore under her breath.
"Step back," Selene ordered sharply, not to her sister, but to the girl. "Whatever you're doing, stop."
"I'm not doing it," she replied, breath shallow. "I think… it's responding."
The woman's expression changed then, excitement fading into something sharp and wary. "That's sooner than expected."
The pressure snapped within the air and it was not an explosion or a rupture, but a release, like a door opening just enough to let something breathe. The runes dimmed rapidly, the chamber settling into uneasy silence as the weight lifted all at once.
She staggered, catching herself against the stone, heart racing, skin buzzing.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Selene sheathed her blade with deliberate calm and turned to her sister. "This ends now. She returns with me."
The woman studied the girl one last time, her smile slower and more dangerous than before. "For now," she said. "But understand this, little fox."
Her gaze bored into her, unblinking. "You don't belong to this city. You don't belong anywhere, in my opinion. And whatever, just noticed you don't care which of us wins, but we do, and a war, a fight, is going on; you need to understand."
She stepped back, the shadows folding around her as the relay chamber began to unwind.
"We'll meet again," she added softly. "Next time, you won't stumble into the center of the board, not by accident at least."
Before the girl could say another word, she was gone.
Silence followed, thick and unresolved.
Selene turned to her, expression unreadable, but there was something new in her eyes now, something close to urgency.
"We need to talk," Selene said. "Immediately."
She nodded, though her thoughts were still spiraling outward, brushing against places she had never seen and now knew existed.
Because whatever had stirred had not gone back to sleep, making her wonder if this was deliberately happening, if this was being planned by someone else, and if her life here is truly her own.