Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder-Chapter 1618 - 60 : The Shape of Our Future

*Briella*

Kryzen had to hold me up as we stared at the scene before us. It took several days to get to the top of Lumina Mountain from the base to the peak, but it had been impossible to fully fathom just how far up we had traveled. A lot of it had been slight inclines, while others were climbing up vertical rock walls.

It felt as if I was looking at the entire Embervale Realm as we stood on Lumina’s peak. We were so high up that clouds were below us. Thankfully, it was a fairly clear day, so we could gaze down at the gorgeous world below.

I had never been in the mountains in this realm. I felt as if I was gazing down from the top of the world. I could see everything I loved about Embervale from up there, from the vibrantly green plant life to the crystal blue bodies of water.

The layer of magical energy, which had a golden hue to it, was also more prominent from the Lumina peak. It brought a magical glow to the rolling hills and the soft blanket of fog that seemed to encase everything in sight.

“It’s been a while since we’ve been up here,” Tye said, nodding in approval at the scene below us.

Teela had her dainty hands clasped in front of her as she stared at the view with a dreamy twinkle in her eyes.

“I love it up here,” she gushed, inhaling deeply as if trying to memorize the scent of the air surrounding the peak.

“It’s not that far from the city,” I said, blinking slowly as I stared at the twins. “Why don’t you come up here more often? I feel like I would be up here all the time if I lived as close as you both do.”

Tye and Teela glanced at each other. It was easy to tell that they were amused by my question.

“We wish we could be here as often as we like,” Tye said. “But it isn’t that simple. Not only is it extremely difficult to travel up here, as you have now both experienced, but it is also a sacred place.”

“Sacred?” Kryzen repeated, clearly asking for an elaboration.

“It’s only used for sacred rituals like this one we’re about to do,” Teela explained. “It isn’t forbidden for us to come up here, more like strongly discouraged. None of us are willing to chance tainting this place by coming here merely for pleasure.”

That made sense to me, and I respected their way of thinking. It made me appreciate the sight that I was able to enjoy that much more.

It couldn’t last. As Teela had needlessly reminded me, we had a more dire reason for being up there.

“We appreciate you all trusting us to tread on your sacred land,” Kryzen said, also obviously in awe at where we stood.

Tye waves him off. “You are our honored guests. Alpha Nova made it clear that we are to treat you both as one of our own.”

Kryzen and I smiled, touched by the sentiment.

Teela looked pleased by our reaction, but then her eyes grew serious. She turned away from the mystical landscape below us. “This way,” she said, walking through a patch of trees.

Before too long, we found ourselves in a little clearing. It looked like ruins almost with stone pillars that had vines wrapping their way around them. In the center of it all was a flat, large, raised platform.

As we neared it, I realized the platform was in the shape of a square, and the smooth shiny stone surface was covered in intricate carvings. There were several panels, each with a different image of a figure going through different tasks.

“Our ancestors would journey up here every year to predict the harvest for the coming season,” Tye explained. He gestured to the first panel. “This was said to be the very first Alpha of our pack. He discovered the secret of the mountain, learning that the sky holds the answers to the past, present, and future.”

I tried to picture it, the very first Lumina Mountain Alpha climbing to the summit of this mountain for the first time and beholding the wonder of it. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he discovered its secrets, its portal into unearthing the unknown of space and time.

I wondered briefly if he had been afraid or uncertain, the way I was feeling right now as I stood where he had all those years ago.

Teela pulled something out of the thick bag she had slung over her shoulder. I realized it was the book the head elder had given us. “Tye and I will get the summit ready for the ceremony.”

“What should we do?” I asked.

Tye just waved us off. “We have it covered. There really isn’t anything you can do except to meditate on what it is you’d like to have revealed to you from the future. When it comes time to ask the sky, your words should be clear and concise.”

Before I could say anything else, the twins hurried off to the other side of the large platform. They were far enough away to the point where we would likely have to yell at them to communicate.

I had to force myself to calm down as we watched the preparations. The twins had to carry the potions and incense with them up the mountain. They carefully unpacked the little glass vials that they had wrapped in some kind of thick cloth. They were looking over the pages in the book before they began to open the little containers and sprinkled some of the contents around.

The twins started to murmur to themselves as they walked around the pillar, dropping incense and sprinkling potions as they went. They didn’t look at each other as they worked, but somehow they were perfectly in sync with one another, stepping in time with each other and even changing directions at the same time.

“Amazing,” I whispered. “I wonder if they can be so in sync because they are twins.”

Kryzen had been watching the two silently as well, his gray eyes following their movements not unlike the way a wildcat would follow its prey. “That could be,” he said finally. “Although, I would more so attest it to the way they are chanting.” 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning to look up at him.

Kryzen’s eyes were narrowed as they followed the twins’ movements. He pursed his lips as he thought about how to explain his thinking to me. “They are saying a spell out loud over and over,” he said. “They are doing so in a rhythmic way so they can match their movements as long as they do so to their chanting.”

My jaw dropped as I processed what Kryzen meant. It did look as if the twins were doing some kind of dance. It was as if they were moving to a rhythm.

I stepped a little closer to Kryzen, suddenly feeling nervous as the twins’ voices rose.

Kryzen looked down at me in concern, his thick eyebrows furrowing. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said a little too quickly.

Kryzen blinked at me before his gray eyes narrowed. “It sure doesn’t sound like nothing,” he said. He turned fully to face me and then bent slightly so his eyes were level with mine. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, Black?”

I snorted a bit as he reverted back to using my last name. I found that it was his way of lightening a situation but also to tease me. “Just the gravity of everything hitting me, I guess,” I said finally.

“We don’t even know if anything is going to happen,” Kryzen pointed out, but his tone told me that he could feel something about to happen as well.

Those thoughts were only amplified when it felt as if the ground beneath our feet was shaking. I looked down at a few pebbles that were bouncing around my boots before meeting Kryzen’s wide-eyed look. Almost as soon as I took a breath, the wind began to pick up around us as well, swirling around our bodies.

Kryzen grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him, looking around wildly. The twins looked unconcerned by the sudden, frightening changes. In fact, the wind was acting up even more harshly around them. Teela’s hair was flying in all directions. Still, they continued to chant, although a lot louder than they had been previously.

“Briella!”

It was Teela who had called my name. She was waving at me, beckoning us to come over. We did so quickly. I stared down at the platform right as it began to glow the color of the sky, the lines of the images etched onto the stone shimmering brightly.

“It’s time,” Tye said once we had approached. He held out his hand to me. I took it, allowing him to pull me up onto the glowing platform. He led me over to the center of the platform where a perfect circle was etched into the stone. He guided me so that I was standing in the circle and handed me the book.

He pointed to a verse in the middle of the page. “Read this aloud with me,” he said.

We read the lines together, my tongue feeling as if it was twisting as I stumbled through the strange alien language that seemed to contain way more vowels than consonants.

I could feel the end of the passage before we were done reading it. I had to clutch the book tighter in my hands as the wind started to howl loudly in my ears, the light beneath my feet almost blinding.

I felt Tye step away. “Ask the sky what you’d like to know,” he said, his tone urging.

I widened my stance a bit, feeling like if I didn’t, I would get blown off of the mountain. I looked up at the sky to find that the clouds were swirling madly, creating a large eye in the center right above my head.

I straightened as much as I could, staring directly into the large patch of sky. “Please!” I yelled above my head. “Please tell me how to find the land of shadows!”

For a long moment, it was like the sky hadn’t heard me, but then the clouds began to darken and the wind practically screeched as a storm started to rage. The clouds started to shift and change.

“Briella!”

I couldn’t look away from the sky, even as my feet began to leave the ground due to a powerful gust that appeared out of nowhere. I gasped when something firm and warm crashed into me, sending us both to the hard stone of the platform.

“Brace yourself!” Kryzen roared over the wind, his body rigid over mine as he did his best to shield me from the harsh elements.

Above us, the clouds were nearly black as they swirled and began to form the shape of our future.