A Werewolf's Unexpected Mate-Chapter 153: The Echo of Burning Pages
•Restaurant Inn Private Room•
[Gale’s POV] 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Ann had left the room, but my attention remained fixed on the closed sliding door, as if I could will her to return with answers. The violent, visceral reaction she’d had to the words Thaumamorphs and Flesh Hunters wasn’t just sickness; it was a key turning in a lock buried deep within her—a lock I think she didn’t even know existed. I let out a slow, frustrated sigh. Too bad she didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
"Gale." Ray’s voice pulled my gaze back to the table. He was watching me, his orange eyes holding a quiet intensity that demanded an explanation, not as a prince, but as the leader of this fractured group. "Why did you ask her that?"
"I just felt like asking," I said with a deliberate nonchalance, picking up my chopsticks and slurping a few noodles. The food was lukewarm now, the flavors muted. It was a poor distraction.
I saw the doubt cloud Ray’s features. He wasn’t buying it. And I could feel the weight of Ace’s glare from his spot by the window, a silent, protective heat directed at my back. "She didn’t answer," I continued, deciding to lean into the provocation. "And I doubt any of the three of you have ever heard the term before. I’d wager you don’t even know what the Mnemosynum is."
"Duty... write... history... library..."
The green-haired fairy’s broken words from my vision—from my dream—echoed suddenly in the vault of my mind. I swallowed hard, the noodles turning to paste in my mouth. If I pieced it together... Thaumamorphs. Flesh Hunters. Those specific, lost terms. They would have been recorded. They would be in the archives—the Mnemosynum. Was that fairy not just showing me a possible future... but giving me a directive? A warning to seek the truth that had been erased?
"I’ve heard the word Mnemosynum before," Ray said, breaking into my thoughts. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. He used his chopsticks to retrieve a final mushroom from the now-lukewarm pot. "During intelligence-gathering operations in my early years with the 1st Division knights."
"Oh," I said, a flicker of genuine surprise cutting through my cynicism. "So you do know something about it."
Ray gave a simple, unassuming nod. There was no boast in it, just a statement of fact. "The Mnemosynum. The Library of History. The sacred repository of ancestral knowledge for all intelligent species. It was said to hold the record of everything that ever happened. The creation of the world. The birth of different species and beings. The true nature and history of mana. Every answer to every question you could ever think to ask... was supposed to be within its walls." He ate the mushroom, the profound loss implied in his words hanging heavier than any spoken lament.
"Mnemosynum..." Ovelia whispered the name, testing the strange, weighty syllables on her tongue. She was staring down at the stuffed fairy toy in her lap, her fingers tracing its glittery wing. The worry in her red eyes, which had briefly eased, was back, dark and deep. Is she still sick with concern for Ann?
"Mnemosynum..." Ace echoed the word from his place by the window, his voice a low murmur. He wasn’t looking at any of us; he was peering into the darkened glass as if it were a portal.
What is wrong with these two? Their repetition felt ominous, like a prayer or a curse.
Then Ace’s head snapped around, his silver eyes locking onto mine with sudden, sharp focus. "That’s the largest library that burned to the ground over a century ago!" he said, the memory clearly surfacing. "I heard the story from Almeron, the former General of Silverhowl’s 2nd Division, when I was twenty. He spoke of it as a legendary tragedy."
These two are more knowledgeable than I gave them credit for.
"Right," I said, my voice dropping. I unclenched a fist I hadn’t realized I’d made. "The protectors inside—the Archivists, scholars from every race—were slaughtered. Every last one. Then the entire library was set ablaze, and no one knows who the mastermind was. It burned for a day. That’s why we fairies..." I stopped myself. I hadn’t been born when the Mnemosynum burned, but the old, collective grief of my race, the loss of that shared cradle of knowledge, was a wound that hadn’t fully healed—even for an exile like me.
"Slaughtered? Burned...?" Ovelia’s voice was a thin, horrified thread. Her spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against her ceramic bowl. The sound was shockingly sharp in the quiet room. Her hands, which had been resting in her lap, began to shake. Not a fine tremor, but a violent, uncontrollable quaking.
And then, I felt it. A tsunami of negative emotion surging through our bond, so powerful it stole my breath. It wasn’t just sadness or fear. It was a profound, soul-deep anguish, a sense of violation so complete it felt like the fabric of the world was tearing. It was grief for something lost on a scale I couldn’t comprehend.
Tears, silent and fast, welled in her wide red eyes and spilled over, tracing clean paths down her pale cheeks. They fell onto the stuffed toy in her lap, darkening the bright fabric.
"Ovelia?" I asked, the confusion in my voice genuine this time. This wasn’t a reaction to a scary story. This was a visceral, personal wound being torn open.
[Ovelia’s POV]
The words left Gale’s lips—"slaughtered and burned"—and it was as if they were a key, a brutal incantation that unlocked a door I never knew was there. The cozy, lantern-lit room dissolved, replaced by a violent, searing rush of images that weren’t memories, but felt more real than the bowl of pudding in front of me.
"Viana, Oliver, run! Hide her!"
An old woman’s voice, cracked not with terror but with urgency, ripped through the vision. She shouted my parents’ names. Then I saw them—not as still portraits in a lost locket, but moving, living. A man with kind, desperate eyes, clutching a basket to his chest (Oliver), and a woman with flawless white hair and a determined set to her jaw (Viana). They were running, fleeing.
’This is the Blazing Tribe’s village. Our village." Lady Firera’s voice said in my mind. The knowledge came not as a thought, but as a cold, sinking certainty.
The perspective shifted, as if I were a bird looking down. Suddenly, a sharp, echoing crack split the air—the unmistakable report of a gun. But the people left in the village didn’t scream. They didn’t scatter. I couldn’t make out their faces clearly, but their postures were not of panic. They stood in small groups, or alone, their bodies held with a strange, resigned stillness.
Then the attackers poured in. Dark-clad figures in practical gear, faces hidden by masks or shadow. They wielded an array of brutal, efficient weapons. The Flesh Hunters. The identification was instinctive, a poisonous label burned into my mind by the vision.
The tribe... they didn’t fight. They just... waited.
Stop... I begged the vision silently.
But it didn’t. The hunters moved with methodical, cruel efficiency. Laughter, rough and viciously delighted, rang out as they cut down the silent villagers—a jovial, hearty sound, as if this were a festival game. They moved from villager to villager; the villagers fell, one by one, without a struggle. Some were not granted a quick death. I saw a hunter kneel beside an elder, press a blade to their throat, and speak—asking, demanding. The elder said nothing. The hunter laughed and drew the blade slowly, cruelly across.
"Lady Firera..." I cried out in the prison of my mind. "Why am I seeing this?"
The hunters brought torches. They set the thatched roofs ablaze. The flames roared to life, hungry and orange, consuming the humble homes. I saw small forms—children—caught in the inferno. Even they made no sound. The silence of the victims was more horrifying than any scream.
"PLEASE STOP!! I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANY OF THIS! LADY FIRERA, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" My mental plea was a raw, desperate scream.
"Ovelia, calm down." Lady Firera’s voice came, but it was strained, vibrating with a fury so potent it felt like my own bones might shake apart. "I don’t know why you are seeing the past, but you must try to calm yourself." Her words were an order, but beneath them was a torrent of controlled, ancient rage.
Seeing the past? So this wasn’t a nightmare. This was a memory—not mine, but my tribe’s. This had happened. This was the fire that forged my tragedy, the atrocity that sent my parents running to save me... before their own end.
The laughter of the Flesh Hunters, mingling with the crackle of flames and the silent, willing deaths of my people, became a symphony of horror. Something inside me—some last innocent hope that the world’s cruelty had limits—shattered. A sob ripped from my throat, and the tears that had been gathering spilled over, hot and endless.
Then, through the blurred, burning vision, I felt strong arms encircle me, pulling me against a solid, warm chest. The scent of pine and cold night air cut through the phantom smoke. But I couldn’t see who it was. My eyes were still filled with the burning village, my ears ringing with the laughter of monsters, while my body trembled violently in the safety of that unknown embrace.
