A Gift from the Goddess
Chapter 90

Chapter Ninety

The pack vault.

Reserved for only fully sworn—in ranked members and Elders. It was a place where the Winter Mist'smost valuable possessions and secrets were kept, passed down through all the generations.

It was my first time coming down here in this life and, out of all the people, I never expected to beaccompanied by Brayden; someone who was neither a full ranked member nor someone Iparticularly liked. I knew he would take this experience to engorge his ego but there didn’t seem tobe much choice. I refused to spend my time doing nothing when there was so much going on. Theaor not, I would still make myself useful somehow.

The vault was huge and packed from top to bottom with everything one could imagine; books,important documents, items, weapons, heirlooms. A collection more diverse than probably all otherpacks in the country. Now, considering what I knew about the lineages, I wondered if perhaps ourancient origins were to be thanked for that.

But, more so than what we could visually see, I couldn't discount the smell of the old literaturesurrounding me. A scent that I was so familiar with and took immense comfort in. If I closed myeyes, I could even recall some of my fondest memories spent in libraries; once somewhere I tooksanctuary in.

"So, this is the pack vault,” Brayden said next to me as we entered through the large metal door.The undertone of excitement in his voice was impossible to miss but I brushed it off, doing my bestto ignore him. Or at least I tried to.

He walked directly ahead of me towards a cabinet of artifacts and was about to reach out and grabone when

“Don’t touch anything,” I snapped, his hand pausing only inches away from a chalice. “I have nochoice but to let you in here but you're sorely mistaken if you think this is some sort of reward.You've been tasked with keeping an eye on me. I don’t see where in that order it says you can take aprivate tour of the vault. I o me, that would be considered doing the opposite of what you wereinstructed to do.”

Brayden'’s jaw tightened in disapproval but he dropped his hand nevertheless. For a Gamma heir, hesure didn’t show much promise in the ways of using his head or following directions correctly.Perhaps his position was something I would need to reconsider in the future.

“This way,” I said, and started walking towards the back of the room.

Thadn't explored everything in here but I did have a basic understanding. I knew it was sorted byage and then into each individual category within that e.g. books, artifacts etc. In the past, I'd onlystuck to modern history, focusing on war and politics, so it was my first time seeing the very back.And it did not disappoint.

A sharp inhale of surprise passed my lips as I saw what was waiting for us. The books were asbeautiful a s they were old, someone obviously taking the time to embellish the covers long ago. Byall accounts, they were stunning

“I'm going to start reading through these. There is an armchair in the corner if you want to getcomfortable,” I said to Brayden and sat myself down at a nearby table.

And so it began. Reading carefully through the books around me. They were far too fragile, and themajority written in the old language I could only vaguely understand, but I persevered regardless. Ifanything seemed remotely useful then I knew I could always ask Elder Luke to translate it correctlyfor m e later.

But with the success rate I was having, that seemed like a small chance anyway.

After an hour of reading, I was yet to replace anything with even the tiniest mention of Thea, thelineages or even just Selene in general. Everything I'd found was mostly historical and spoke aboutthe pack affairs at the time of writing, or just the pack itself.

And Brayden wasn't making the process any easier.

He sat in the corner, staring daggers at me the entire time. Presumably making a point at howmiserable h e was and attempting to make me as uncomfortable as possible.

Admittedly, it was working.

"Okay, fine!” I finally burst out, frustrated from both the lack of results and his behaviour. “You win. Ican't focus with you acting like a bored toddler.”

He perked up in his chair immediately but was still hesitant, waiting for me to give him verbalpermission. “..What do you mean?”

“I mean go and look around. Leave me in peace to read and, in return, I won't tell Aleric youwandered off," I said, defeated. “But I'm serious when I say don't touch anything. If you accidentallybreak anything then you'll have the entire council demanding punishment for your carelessness.”He didn’t need to be told twice, suddenly a new spring in his step as he basically skipped down theaisle and out of sight towards the weapons section.

I sighed at that. Very typical.

Turns out that being left alone didn’t prove to be that much different in the end. I still struggled toreplace anything useful.

However, though not overly important, I did replace it interesting to learn that the Knight family, Caisancestors, were once a part of the Winter Mist. In fact, it looked as though the two territories usedto be combined but broke off somewhere down the line. The “silver lake’, which eventually becamethe pack’s namesake, used to be connected to the same river system that flowed through theWinter Mist. Would they then be the Silver River pack if still connected today?

For some reason, something about that was nagging in my head, as though I should beremembering something I couldn't. What could be so important about that though?

“Aria,” Brayden then said nearby, returning already from his short expedition.

But I didn’t look up, trying to remember the thing I was close to forgetting. I couldn't lose focus andhe was literally the last distraction I wanted right now.

“Aria,” he then said again, more urgently this time.

"What!?" I snapped and looked up furiously.

..And there she was.

Thea.

In the flesh.

And an all-too—familiar looking sword in her hand that was being held against Brayden’s neck,keeping him hostage. The ancient sword that once beheaded me in the past.

My body instantly froze in shock, almost as though time had stopped. Of all the moments she couldhave chosen to appear, now was by far the worst.

With Brayden at sword point, myself in handcuffs, and all of us so far underground inside the vaultthat no

one would hear us call for help, we were basically at her mercy. The real question was how shemanaged t o get inside the most secure location of the entire pack without anyone even seeingher... and why she was choosing now to appear.

“Aria,” she greeted, her sickly sweet voice sending dread through me.

Calm, I needed to remain calm. She couldn’t touch me which meant I already had the advantage.From everything I'd learned, she would always bet everything on me acting emotionally withoutmuch thought; something that her influence moulded me to become.

“What do you want?” I asked and slowly started to stand up from the table

“Ah-ah, don’t do anything stupid now,” she warned, pressing the blade deeper against Brayden tomakem

e sit back down. “I came for the sword but this little one caught me in the act. Told me you were stillwearing your new accessory. Of course, I couldn't resist corning over to say hi.”

Brayden told her I was still wearing the handcuffs? So she didn't already know? That wasinteresting.

“What's so special about the sword?" I asked, keeping my voice as even as possible.

"Oh, this?" she said, looking it up and down, “This right here is an instrument of my most recenttroubles. The weapon forged by my daughter in the Silver River, now imbued with the souls of Godsupon my children’s deaths.”

Silver River?

And then I realised why that sounded so familiar earlier, Argyros’, as in the Argyros River from theorigin lore Selene showed me, translated to “Silver’ in the modern tongue of today. The river thatused to connect the Silver Lake and the Winter Mist was the very one that had birthed our kind. Wewere once ground zero,

So what made the sword so special that Thea wanted it?

Well, unfortunately, I could already begin to answer that without thinking too hard. And I didn't likewhat it meant for me.

Under the table, I started to tug on the handcuffs, knowing that getting them off was possibly myonly chance at survival. But freeing myself would prove to be almost impossible. Not without...

“It astounds me how hard it is to get into this shithole vault,” she continued. “Breaking in ishopeless... and yet I hear there are merely ten people who have access to it; none of whom everseem to come down here.”

And now I had just opened the door for her.

"So instead of just leaving with what you wanted, you took Brayden hostage and came to gloat?” Iasked.

"Something like that,” she said. “I have a bit of a soft spot for you, I guess you could say. We're notso different when you really think about it. Both of us having our lives ruined by Selene. Both of ussacrificing everything for our duty and then losing everything we love anyway."

I gritted my teeth. “*You* ruined my life,” I argued. “You ruined *both* my lives. And now you'vemanipulated and turned me into ... into whatever this is. You took away those I loved and made mepush

away those I still had.”

She paused to consider for a second. “I guess that's true. I didn’t know about the prior timelinesuntil I met you, I'll be honest. Every now and then you would just give me snippets until I finally hadfull control. I I was extremely entertaining to see. I knew Selene was marking those selected from theoriginal lineages but I never realised that they had been reborn by her own making. I wonder howmany times I've succeeded in my goal without ever knowing.”

Chapter Ninety

Snippets... so she couldn“t see everything; not at the beginning anyway... and apparently noteverything of late either. It meant there were limits to what she could do.

“Is that why you targeted me instead of Aleric? Because of the mark?” I asked.

"Oh, right, because that's how it went the first time, right? I suppose that would be the case. I foundout you were looking for me and discovered Selene’s energy radiating off you. You were the biggerthreat out of the two. Of course, I didn't expect you to let me in so easily. It took a lot of work tobreak you down to pieces... but when you finally gave in to me completely? ...Bliss.”

“Two? Why not Cai?”

Truthfully I was surprised she was telling me any of this but I also realised that this must have been abig moment for her. Thea liked me to know how badly I'd messed up, know where I'd gone wrongso she

could revel in it. Just like how she left the note on Myra’“s body. She'd been working towards this foryears, if not centuries, so of course she wouldn't miss the opportunity to brag about it.

I wasn't upset either. Partly because I was finally getting answers, partly because I was waiting forthe perfect moment to do what I needed under the table.

"Cai? Well... he's fun, isn't he? You two once had a thing, right? I can see why,” she winked, causingme to wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Alas though, his genetic predisposition is too similar to my own.At best, I can influence only on a surface level but to fully manipulate someone who by nature canalso manipulate, even if that's in a slightly different way...? It just doesn't really work. Just sort ofmade him sick. Like two magnets of the same pole repulsing each other. I did what I did purely tobreak you down further. Create

chaos and feed fuel of mistrust.”

Cai had mentioned that he wasn’t sure about “Caitlyn’ when I questioned him. In fact, the more wespoke about it, the more uncertain he sounded. Was he therefore more immune than the rest of us?Becoming a little unwell seemed like a fair price to pay for retaining control against what she wastruly capable of.

But... hearing this from her, I quickly realised that the information about Cai was pretty invaluable tous. A bit *toot important to just let slip. More so than what could be justified by only wanting togloat.

"..Why are you telling me all of this?" I finally asked warily.

“Well... it doesn't really matter, does it?" she said, almost a little smug. “I've got the sword... I'm sureyou've already worked out what that means from just the fact I want it.”

So I was right. The sword meant that she was able to somehow break the protection.

It meant I couldn't let her leave with it.

..But... one wrong move and she would just kill Brayden.

A fate, I realised, that was probably inevitable, if not required here.

As horrible as it might seem, to me, it felt like fair collateral damage. One life to potentially save ourentire species. To save myself. It was a logical decision.

Given how much Brayden likes to brag, he'd be dying in the best possible way. A hero's death, ofsorts. And I, for one, sure as hell wouldn’t miss him on a personal level either.

All I'd need to do was wait until she was talking out another lengthy explanation, execute my planwith the handcuffs, and then, whilst she was taking care of Brayden, I would use that time to disarmher. Best case scenario would be if I could kill her right here, right now. End this once and for-."Aria... please,” Brayden then whimpered, bringing my attention to him. “Please... I-I'm sorry for everbeing mean to you. I-I'm sorry.”

It didn't take a genius for one to realise that he probably wasn't going to survive this, no matterwhich way

Chapter Ninety

it went. Even if Thea got her way, she wouldn't just let him live once it was over. No loose ends. Hewas likely already dead the second she found him.

But there was something so tremendously pathetic in the way he looked at me which made merealise that perhaps the decision wasn’t as obvious as I thought.

Once this was all over, would this just become another moment for Cai to look at me with disgustand call me a monster for letting Brayden die so easily? Was the “moral’ choice to replace a solution tolet us both live, whatever that entailed?

.. Would Aleric slowly begin to see me as a monster too if I didn't?

The problem was that there truly was no option that had good odds for both his life and the swordretrieved. Not to mention, implementing a plan with less chance of success seemed far too riskywhen the stakes meant Thea could leave with the sword. And then what if I failed? Would they thencriticise me for not stopping her, no matter the cost?

How was I meant to make the correct choice when I didn't even know what *I* thought was right,when I didn’t even know what was me and what was just Thea's desire now ingrown within? When Iwas so damaged inside that it was like I couldn't even trust myself?

The choices were to let Brayden die... or open ourselves up to the possibility of thousands eventuallydying. So if I saved Brayden now but lost the sword, would there be another chance to stop herbefore she finally killed us all off?

To say I was panicking over this decision was an understatement.

..But, as difficult as that choice was, after a few more moments of consideration... I did manage tomake up my mind. I knew what I needed to do.