Chapter 175: Grief and Connection
LILY POV
I threw Elder Iris’s book across the room with such force that it hit the wall and pages scattered everywhere.
"It’s not true!" I screamed at the empty air. "She’s lying! She has to be lying!"
But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren’t true. Elder Iris had never lied to me. Not once in all the years I’d known her. And now she was gone, and her final words were ringing in my head like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.
It’s her son.
The void entity that had been terrorizing our pack, the thing that had tried to transform Luna, the being I thought was my lost brother - it was my child. A child I didn’t even know I had.
I sank to my knees among the scattered pages, and that’s when it hit me.
Pain. Raw, crushing, intense pain that felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it burst.
I doubled over, gasping for breath as waves of pain crashed through me. This wasn’t like the gentle warmth of love or the fierce burn of protectiveness. This was sharp and terrible and it made me want to crawl into a dark hole and never come out.
But underneath the pain was something else. Something I hadn’t felt in months.
I was feeling. Really, truly feeling.
Tears poured down my cheeks as I grieved for Elder Iris, for the doubt about my supposed son, for all the months I’d spent as an empty shell. Each sob hurt, but it also proved I was alive again.