Calyn's POV
I don't think. I just move.
My hands fly up, and golden energy explodes from my palms. It hits future-me mid-lunge, throwing her backward into a tree. The impact cracks the trunk.
"Impossible," she gasps, staring at me with those bleeding black eyes. "You just transformed. You shouldn't be able to control it yet—"
"I'm not you." My voice is steady despite my racing heart. "I'll never be you."
She laughs—a sound like breaking glass. "You already are. You just don't see it yet." She pushes off the tree, and dark void energy swirls around her. "But you will. When you're forced to choose between power and the people you love, you'll make the same choice I did."
"What choice?" I demand.
"You'll find out soon enough." She lunges again, faster this time.
Rowan shifts and intercepts her, his massive black wolf form slamming into her. They crash to the ground, fighting viciously. But every time his claws connect, her translucent body just reforms around the wounds.
"She's not fully physical anymore!" Morgana shouts. "Physical attacks won't work!"
Rhea tries anyway, diving in to help Rowan. But future-me swats her aside with a wave of dark energy. Rhea hits the ground hard and doesn't get up.
"Stop!" I scream. "Leave them alone!"
"Then give me what I want." Future-me throws Rowan off and advances on me. "Give me your golden power. Let me consume you. It'll be quick. Painless. And your friends will live."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" She glances at Rowan, who's struggling to stand. "I remember this moment. In my timeline, I watched him die here. Watched that witch burn trying to protect me. Watched Rhea's neck snap. All because I was too weak to do what needed to be done."
"What needed to be done?"
She stops three feet away. "I let her consume me. The version of me from even further in the future. She took my power, and in exchange, she let my friends escape. It was the only way to save them."
My blood runs cold. "You're saying this is a loop? That versions of us just keep consuming each other across time?"
"Finally, you understand." Her smile is bitter. "There's no escape, Calyn. No matter what choices we make, it always ends the same way. One of us consumes the other. The only question is: which one survives?"
"Then I choose a third option." I let the golden energy build in my chest. "I reject the loop. I break it."
"You can't—"
I release everything.
Not to attack. Not to drain. But to share.
The golden energy explodes outward, washing over everyone—Rowan, Rhea, Morgana, even future-me. It's not stealing their power. It's connecting us. Linking our life forces together.
And through that connection, I feel everything.
Rowan's fear that he'll fail to protect me. Rhea's guilt over wolves she couldn't save from the Enclave. Morgana's grief over her daughter's death. And future-me... her absolute, crushing loneliness.
She's been alone for so long. Consumed everyone who ever cared about her. Until there was nothing left except hunger.
"I see you," I whisper. "I see what you became. And I'm sorry."
"Don't." Her voice cracks. "Don't pity me."
"I'm not pitying you. I'm choosing differently." I step forward, and the golden energy intensifies. "You don't have to be alone anymore. You don't have to consume me. We can coexist. Two versions of the same person, both choosing a different path."
"That's not how time works—"
"Then we'll break time." I hold out my hand. "Please. Let me help you. Let me show you there's another way."
For a moment, she just stares at my hand. The black bleeding from her eyes slows. Her translucent form solidifies slightly.
She's considering it.
Then her face hardens. "No. I tried hope once. It destroyed me. I won't make that mistake again."
She grabs my hand.
And instead of shaking it, she tries to drain me.
Her dark void energy crashes into my golden power, and it's like two tidal waves colliding. The force of it creates a shockwave that flattens trees around us.
"Give it to me!" she screams. "Give me your power!"
But the golden energy doesn't flow into her. Instead, it flows through her. It doesn't fight her darkness—it illuminates it. Shows her every moment that led her to this point. Every choice. Every sacrifice. Every person she consumed.
"Stop!" She tries to pull away, but the connection holds. "I don't want to see this!"
"You need to," I say gently. "You need to remember who you were before the hunger took over."
The golden light shows her a memory: her and Rowan, months from now in her timeline, laughing together. He's teaching her to fight without using her void power. She looks happy. Whole.
"That moment never happened for me," she whispers, tears running down her translucent face. "He died before we got there."
"But it could happen," I insist. "If you stop. If you choose differently now."
"I can't." Her voice breaks completely. "I've consumed too much. Taken too many lives. There's no coming back from what I've done."
"There's always a choice—"
"No. There isn't." She looks at me with something like love. Like regret. "But maybe there's redemption."
Before I can ask what she means, she reverses the flow.
Instead of taking my power, she gives me hers.
All of it.
Every ounce of dark void energy she's accumulated across her timeline pours into me. Not as consumption, but as a gift. A transfer.
"What are you doing?!" I try to stop it, but the flow is too strong.
"Saving you," she says simply. "If I give you all my power, all my memories, all my mistakes—you'll know every wrong path. Every trap. Every moment that led me to become this." She smiles. "And maybe, with that knowledge, you'll actually break the loop."
"But you'll die—"
"I'm already dead. Have been for a long time." Her form is fading now, becoming transparent again. "I'm just a ghost haunting her own past. It's time to let go."
The transfer completes. Memories flood my mind—her memories. I see everything. Her entire timeline. Every choice, every death, every moment of crushing loneliness.
And I understand why she became what she did.
Future-me collapses, barely visible now. Rowan catches her before she hits the ground.
"Take care of him," she whispers to me, looking at Rowan. "He loves you. Even if he hasn't figured it out yet. Even if he's too scared to admit why he really came to the Deadlands."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
But she's already fading. "The debt... tell Morgana... it was always about the debt..."
Then she's gone. Dissolved into light. Just... gone.
Rowan shifts back to human, staring at where she was. "What just happened?"
"She gave me everything." I can barely process it. My mind is full of memories that aren't mine. A lifetime of experiences I never lived. "She showed me her entire timeline. Every mistake. Every—"
I stop. Because I just accessed a memory that makes my blood freeze.
Rowan's secret. The real reason he came to the Deadlands.
I turn to look at him, and he must see something in my face because he backs up.
"Calyn—"
"You knew." My voice is hollow. "You knew what I was before we ever came here. You knew I was a Void."
His face goes pale. "I can explain—"
"The debt Morgana will ask for. The one I promised to fulfill." I feel sick. "It's you, isn't it? She's going to ask me to give you my power. To make you stronger than any Alpha in history. That's why you brought me here. That's why you've been so helpful. You're using me."
"No!" He steps forward. "It's not like that—"
"Then what is it like?" I'm shaking now. "Tell me the truth, Rowan. All of it."
He closes his eyes. When he opens them, they're full of pain. "Six months ago, Morgana contacted me. She said a Void was going to emerge soon. She said if I helped keep you alive, helped you reach her for training, she'd give me the thing I've wanted most for fourteen years."
"What?"
"The power to destroy the Council." His voice is raw. "To tear down the entire hierarchy system that killed my parents. To remake the werewolf world into something better. She said with your power added to mine, I could do it. I could actually change everything."
I stare at him, feeling betrayed all over again. "So this whole time—the rescue, the protection, the belief in me—it was all manipulation? You were just keeping your investment alive?"
"It started that way," he admits. "But Calyn—"
"But nothing!" Golden energy crackles around my hands. "You lied to me. Just like everyone else."
"I fell in love with you!" he shouts. "That wasn't the plan! That wasn't supposed to happen! But I did, and now I don't care about Morgana's deal anymore. I don't care about destroying the Council. I just want you to survive this!"
The words hang in the air between us.
Morgana clears her throat. "Well. That complicates things."
I spin on her. "Did you know? About his feelings?"
"Of course. I'm a witch. I see everything." She leans on her staff. "But here's the interesting part: the debt I was going to ask for? It wasn't to give Rowan your power."
"Then what—"
"I was going to ask you to kill him."
The world tilts.
"What?" Rowan and I say simultaneously.
Morgana smiles sadly. "In three weeks, Rowan was going to betray you. Not intentionally. But the Council was going to capture someone he loves—someone I won't name yet. And to save them, he was going to trade you. Lead you into a trap. Get you killed."
"No," Rowan breathes. "I would never—"
"You would. You will. Unless the timeline has already changed too much." Morgana looks at me. "That's why I was going to ask you to kill him first. Before he could betray you. Before his love for someone else overrode his love for you."
"Someone else?" I feel like I'm drowning. "Who?"
Morgana's smile is cruel. "Guess you'll have to wait three weeks to find out. If we all survive that long."
A howl echoes from the direction we came. The Council army has breached the Heart of the Deadlands.
"They followed us," Rhea says grimly, finally conscious again. "We're trapped."
Hundreds of wolves pour into the clearing, surrounding us completely. And leading them is someone I never expected to see again.
Senna Darkthorn.
She shifts to human form, smiling like she's won. "Hello, Calyn. Miss me? Because I brought friends. Lots of them. And they're all very interested in what you've become."
She gestures, and the wolves part.
Walking through them is Matthias.
My brother. Alive and whole.
But his eyes are different. They're not his brown eyes anymore.
They're void-black.
Just like future-me's were.
"Hello, sister," he says, and his voice has that same corrupted quality. "Surprised? You should be. Because while you were playing with time magic and golden power, I was learning from your future self. She taught me how to become a Void too. And now?" He smiles. "Now we're going to find out which sibling is stronger."
He raises his hands, and dark void energy explodes from them.
"Let's see if your golden power can survive the one person in this world who knows all your weaknesses. After all—I'm the one who buried you once already."
The attack comes.