The Alpha's Fated Outcast: Rise Of The Moonsinger. - Chapter 425

Chapter 425: The final goodbye…

Lyla

The silver light around Nanny was growing brighter by the second, and I could feel the air itself beginning to vibrate with the power she was calling forth. This was really happening. The woman who had raised me, who had been my anchor through every storm, was about to sacrifice herself to save us all.

“Mom,” I whispered, reaching toward her with trembling hands.

She turned to me, and for a moment the terrible light dimmed enough that I could see her face clearly. Her eyes were filled with love and peace, the same expression she’d worn when she used to tuck me into bed as a child and tell me stories.

“My darling girl,” she said softly, “Come here.”

I moved toward her, and she pulled me into her arms the way she had countless times throughout my life. She smelled like lavender and home, and I buried my face in her shoulder as tears poured down my cheeks.

“I’m so proud of you,” she murmured against my hair. “So proud of the woman you’ve become, the mother you’re going to be. Your dad would be proud, too.”

“Please don’t leave me,” I sobbed, clinging to her like the frightened child I suddenly felt like again. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”

“Yes, you do,” Nanny said firmly, pulling back to look into my eyes. “You’ve always been stronger than you realised, Lyla. You defeated Xander, a feat none of the Moonsingers before you could achieve. You’ve survived everything life has thrown at you.”

She reached up to touch the necklace at her throat. It was the pendant that she’d come with as a child and the only indication of her parentage.

Gently, she lifted it over her head and placed it around my neck.

“This is for you now,” she said. “And for your daughters after you. The legacy continues, my sweet girl. You must always be happy.”

“Mom, I love you so much,” I whispered, the words felt inadequate for everything she meant to me.

“And I love you,” she replied, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “More than all the stars in the sky. You gave me purpose, Lyla. You gave my life meaning. Raising you has been the greatest privilege of my existence.”

“We need to move!” Kyren’s voice cut through our goodbye with urgent necessity. “The spell won’t hold them back much longer!”

Miriam’s expression shifted. “Go,” she said, pushing me gently but firmly toward Kyren. “Go and live the beautiful life you deserve.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” she said with absolute conviction. “You will. For your children. For Ramsey. For all of us.”

Kyren’s hands closed around my shoulders, pulling me back as Miriam moved to the centre of the stone circle. The light around her was becoming blinding now, and I could feel the energy building to a crescendo that would either save us all or destroy everything.

“Vis luminaris perpetua, sanguine cordis mei renovata,” Kyren began to chant, his voice ringing through the clearing, “Let the bonds be broken, let the darkness fade, let love triumph over hate.”

The incantation seemed to lock into place around Miriam like an invisible chain, and she nodded once at Kyren before closing her eyes and extending her arms toward the standing stones.

“By my blood, by my choice, by my love for those who will live on,” she said. “I sever what was wrongly joined. I break what should never have been bound. I offer myself as the price for their freedom.”

The world exploded into light.

White light poured from Miriam, swallowing everything up – the stones, the crowd of enemies, Delia and her siblings. I heard screaming, but it seemed to come from very far away, as if I were hearing it through water or thick glass.

Time seemed to slow and speed up simultaneously. I saw Delia’s face contort in rage and horror as she realised what was happening. I saw her siblings trying to flee, their forms beginning to dissolve as the white light reached them. I saw the assembled crowd of followers collapsing.

And through it all, I saw Miriam standing serene and beautiful in the centre of the destruction, her face peaceful as she gave everything she was to ensure that Xander’s legacy would finally, truly end.

The light grew brighter and brighter until I couldn’t see anything at all, and then—

Darkness.

***

I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against soft morning sunlight filtering through the curtains. My hand was clutched around something cool and smooth – a pendant on a delicate chain. I stared at it in confusion, not recognising the jewellery at all, though something about it felt important.

“Lyla? Thank the Moon, you’re awake.”

I turned my head to see Clarissa sitting in a chair beside my bed, pouring tea from a teapot. She looked tired but relieved.

I struggled to sit up, my head spinning slightly with the movement. “What happened? How long was I—”

“Easy,” Clarissa said, setting down the teapot and moving to help me. “You’ve been sleeping for almost eighteen hours. You, Ramsey, Circe and Kyren returned from the human world yesterday evening, and you were completely exhausted. Ramsey said you’d been through quite an ordeal.”

I looked around the room, recognising the familiar walls of my childhood bedroom in the Blue Ridge pack house. Everything looked exactly as it always had – the same furniture, the same photographs, the same sense of safety and home.

“I feel so confused,” I admitted, trying to piece together my fragmented memories. “Everything feels like a dream. Or a nightmare. And I don’t understand why I have this necklace…”

I held up the pendant, studying its design. It was beautiful and old, but I had no memory of how it had come to be in my possession.

Clarissa looked at the necklace with a puzzled expression. “I’ve never seen that before. Maybe Ramsey gave it to you?”

“Maybe,” I said uncertainly, though something deep in my chest ached when I looked at it, as if I’d lost something precious without knowing what.

Clarissa sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand, her expression gentle but concerned. “Ramsey told me some of what happened. About the shapeshifters, about Xander’s children. About the final battle.”

The memories came flooding back – the ritual, the fighting, the desperate escape. But there were gaps, moments that felt important but remained stubbornly blank in my mind.

“It’s over,” I said, more to myself than to Clarissa. “Xander’s bloodline is broken forever. His children, their followers, all of it was destroyed. But I can’t remember exactly how…”

“Kyren said there was some kind of magical backlash that eliminated them all,” Clarissa explained. “The important thing is that they can never threaten anyone again.”

I nodded, though the hollow feeling in my chest remained. Something was missing from my memories, something crucial that I couldn’t quite grasp.

“The twins?” I asked suddenly, my hands moving to my belly.

“They are perfectly fine,” Clarissa assured me quickly. “Moving around like little acrobats, according to the pack doctor who examined you. Whatever happened in that final confrontation, it protected them completely.”

Relief flooded through me, followed by another wave of that strange, nameless grief.

“There’s something else,” Clarissa said, her tone shifting to something more formal. “My coronation is tomorrow. Since the Lycan Leader is here, we’re going to make it official, and all the southern pack leaders will be there to acknowledge my authority.”

I looked at my sister, flashing her a smile. “You did it. You united them.”

“We did it,” she corrected. “Your example, your courage – it inspired them. When they heard what you’d done to save our world, how you’d sacrificed to protect all of us, they finally understood what real leadership looks like.”

I squeezed her hand, proud beyond words of the woman she’d become. “I’m so proud of you, Clarissa.”

“And I’m proud of you,” she replied. “You saved us all, Lyla. You and all the others who fought. You gave us a future free from fear.”

As the morning sun climbed higher in the sky, painting everything in shades of gold, I held my sister’s hand and tried to push away the feeling that someone important was missing from this moment. The necklace seemed to grow warmer in my other hand, as if responding to some emotion I couldn’t name.

There would be healing to be done, children to raise in a world finally free from the darkness that had shadowed it for so long. But there would also be love, and laughter, and the simple joy of knowing that the people we cared about were safe.

Someone had given us the most precious gift of all – the chance to live without fear, to love without reservation, and to build a tomorrow worthy of all those who had fought to make it possible.

Even if I couldn’t remember who that someone was, I would honour their sacrifice with every breath.

And as I felt my children moving gently within me, I knew that whatever had been lost would live on in every heartbeat, every moment of happiness that their unknown sacrifice had made possible – a love so decisive that it had conquered death itself, even if the memory of it had faded like morning mist, leaving only the eternal bloom of hope in an endless spring.