"Follow me."

My back and chest felt sore. My eyes filled up and jaws clenched to control the sudden loneliness and fear I had started to feel.

The bitch took me to the second floor.

The stairway didn't hold paintings on the wall after the first floor. It was just cold and silent everywhere. The vibe was calm yet eerie.

"Bare your feet," Rosetta said authoritatively while pointing at the four inches column made inside the wall at the bottom.

Our eyes met and I glared hard.

She smirked slightly and shook her head. I lowered my gaze.

I removed my sandals while taking the support of the wall. My eyebrows raised at feeling the icy cold floor. Putting them inside the column, I saw her looking ahead and taking me to the first ever hall room on the left side. On the right, my eyes caught the red curtain on the statue again. Maybe, now I was looking at Severa's stomach.

Walking inside the hall room, I blinked in relief at seeing the furry red carpet spread on the whole floor of the room.

A woman in a red cloak was sitting Indian style right in the middle of the room. I could guess that she was Lucine only. Beside her was placed a little flat table on which covered bowls and plates were kept.

Lucine was staring at the sky through the medium-sized window of the room. It had an arched top with no doors. The wall was thick enough with three layers of bricks placed and polished perfectly. The sky seemed blue with a greyish hue.

"Come, Misty."

Rosetta gave me a blank deadly stare again when I glanced at her. She scrunched her nose in disgust while looking at me up and down. Narrowing her eyes, she huffed silently and turned around to walk out of the room. The hem of her cloak and inner red gown moved along with her heavy steps.

Biting my lip, I walked quietly towards Lucine sitting just six steps away from the window. The utensils on the table were made of copper, I guessed.

"Only virgins can enter this temple," said Lucine as I neared her. Her back was so straight and yet relaxed. Her hood was still on. "The fantasies I see in your subconscious mind make me wonder how Severa let you enter her humble abode."

The anger from having to bathe my arms and legs only to get manhandled by Rosetta had made me so furious, I couldn't control my tongue. Well, because Lucine had so confidently told Karam that I was under her protection now. What kind of fantasies was she talking about?

"Because fantasizing doesn't mean losing virginity," I said, bringing a small smile on her face. She was so pale along with those yellow eyes that too seemed white under the morning light. "If you can fantasize about worshipping your Goddess too much to carry her legacy ahead, you can fantasize about a person to excite your heart too. It's natural."

"Come, sit." She said while staring at the window with calm knowing expressions on her face. She looked amused by my words.

I sat beside her diagonally to the little table that was placed ahead in the middle of us.

"When you open doors of your mind to learn something new, you must close some doors to not get yourself distracted. Few of them for some time. Few of them forever." She said while I closed my eyes and still couldn't stop thinking about Karam. If he had been here, Rosetta wouldn't have dared do that.

What did I even do to her? She was so elder than me. Why so much anger for me?

I gulped shakily.

"You may start eating," she said while sliding the table towards me. "Something tells me that you have lost the desire to eat suddenly."

The angry face of Rosetta chilled my spine again. I lowered my eyes.

"I just ate some threats from your apprentice," I said quietly, gritting my teeth in the anger I felt.

Lucine looked back at the window. She had that resemblance of Robin in her. Their nose was similar. "Rosetta doesn't like rebels," she replied softly.

My jaws clenched. "Karam sent me here because he trusts you. You gave him the belief that I am under your watch. You let her push me against a wall. She is double my size," I said while releasing an unimpressed sigh. "A Lycan. Much stronger than me."

"No one who abuses his or her powers stays in power for longer." She said calmly while I slid the table back in the middle of us. I did not want to eat anything. She smiled, still not moving her eyes off the clouds. "If my words will fill your stomach before this food, then this is it. You may ask anything."

"Anything?" I asked while looking at her in frustration. I was overwhelmed. I had covered all of the journeys not to just get threaten by that Lycan woman. "I don't know anymore. What can I ask? What can I mention? Can I mention men, ask about your mate, others' mate, your Goddess, my pack's founder-"

Her mysterious smile faded.

I gulped slowly and looked back at the window. "Why did you invite me here?"

"For the very reason, you are here for." She said, her lips looking red and moisturized. "To get enlightened about our Goddess, Misty. You want to find peace in the chaos of your life. You want to find a direction."

"But Severa's tale is not just in words. It is to be felt. It is to be seen through your own eyes," she said while closing her eyes and smiling to herself. "If you start drinking the warm soup now, the faint wind won't bother you."

I stared at her and then, at the table. Removing the lid of a metal bowl, I saw the vapors leaving it. "Won't you take some?" I asked politely.

She smiled to herself. "I have eaten, dear. This is all for you. For our guest. For my brother's bride," she whispered while opening her eyes.

My eyebrows raised.

"Karam has been completed by your presence. My little brother. The patient one. The thoughtful one. The one who was there for me and my sisters when none of the father, brothers, uncles, and cousins supported us."

My heart fluttered slowly.

"What is meant to be will happen anyway. He had gone insane by the sudden deaths of our families," she said, her smile going away and the blank stare was thrown at the clouds. "He could be happy but he wasn't. There was no one to share that happiness with. He needed a path. A direction. He used to laugh in sorrow. Do you laugh when you are sad?"

I gulped hard, feeling my heart flying in my chest.

She breathed softly. "Loneliness kills the soul slowly and deeply."

"Just like your sisters were killed," I dared to say while taking the little round tray on which the bowl of soup was placed in my hand. Filling up my spoon, I sniffed the warm smell. "But it didn't kill you."

She smiled knowingly. "People stay alive to fill some purposes, dear."

A feeling of Deja Vu crawled on my back. Stephen had said the same thing once.

"I have to carry on Severa's legacy," she said in her soothing cold voice. "To keep this temple, a home for the females who have been abandoned."

"No one is abandoned. Males are helpless," I said while feeling my heart curling in slight fear. "The border is to be blamed."

She smirked slightly. "You crossed the border for your mate. They can too."

"I was thrown," I said softly. "By my brother. I didn't choose to be here."

"He could have thrown himself. But he didn't." She said while looking at me. "You were capable enough to suffer this side of the border. He threw you for that belief of his in you."

I gulped in the disturbance. "If he had come too. Then, who would have ruled the pack? Anyone could be an Alpha but my brother is what the pack deserves. I blame him for me being here. But I know he was helpless. I understand my brother's intentions."

She stared at me with that mysterious confident smile on her face. "I blame my brother for being naive and careless. But I know he was unconscious. I understand my brother's misery." She said, making me stunned.

She was talking about Karam and that night with the mystic woman.

My heart started dropping slowly.

"You can ask anything, Misty. Mention what you want to. Any word. Any name. Any place." She said while breathing slowly. "For our intentions here are to learn."

I gulped the soup and felt the warm liquid going inside my stomach. I let out a breath of relief as it was really effective.

"Did you really kill your mate?" I asked while looking at her nervously.

She blinked knowingly and stared at the clouds. "By taking birth on this land as a Lycan, I did."

I bit my lip. "That's not your fault."

She looked at me knowingly. "If my mate and I were together, lives would have been different today." She sighed and glanced back at the window. "It was written in the fates. To lead, I had to suffer that. Moon Goddess thought my soul was strong enough to deal with such fate. The result of it has only been satisfactory."

All of a sudden, someone draped a blanket over my shoulders.

I was startled and immediately looked back to see the female in a red cloak was already leaving the room. I couldn't see the face.

Spreading the warm blanket over my shoulders, I sighed softly.

Thanks to whichever girl it was.

"What if your mate is not dead?" I said while thinking of Pete, Yuri, Clark, and Declan.

"He is, dear. Severa told me," she said, churning my stomach. "Killed mercilessly by the forces of nature. He died while asking for more time. Though, he was astonished. No one is ready to die unless their desires are fulfilled. My mate's desires were fulfilled and he was ready to die, before even meeting me. There was no thought of a mate even in his deepest parts of his mind. "

I observed her blank face holding unexplainable sadness. Her eyes held such misery that could rip anyone's soul in empathy. The glossiness appeared for a moment and then, she blinked.

For some reason, I thought of Declan's brother, Gus. What if he was her mate?

"Did he cross the border?" I asked quietly.

She smiled sadly. "Border is a farthing for ignorant males like him, dear. It wasn't his fault."

Silence settled while I gulped the soup slowly.

"Severa suffered what I did," she said while holding a glassy stare. She blinked and tilted her head slightly.

"Centuries ago, Lycans ruled the vast territory of these high mountains. Having a great friendship with Mystics in certain ways of practicing it, the mystic culture spread among the Lycans. Alpha Ruth was mated to a common mystic wolf. It further deepened the bond among the packs."

I breathed slowly while taking another spoon of the soup.

"Severa inherited the mysticism from her mother. She could talk to nature. She could see more than what she was supposed to," she said, chilling up my spine. "Alpha Ruth loved his mate so much. He had asked for an army of Lycans to built a temple this high to bring her more happiness. The idea of solitude was highly accepted as a base to choose the peak of the mountain to build a temple."

A large vulture flew far in the sky.

Lucine smiled as if she was living the story. "Her mother used this place to practice the witchcraft here. Severa followed and learned while the brothers were completely ignorant of their mother's homeland culture. Her mother died too soon. Severa was barely fifteen. Alpha Ruth loved her and thus, he still allowed the mystic women to reach this temple and enjoy their mysticism here. It was Severa's refuge, this place."

I put the bowl down on the tray absentmindedly and stared up at the sky. The clouds were formed with such bright neon outlines as if someone was up there with a paintbrush. But they were grey in color for some reason.

"When the border appeared all of a sudden years later, Severa didn't know that it would cause her misery to a level where she would start losing sanity. So, she remembered her mother and left home. She climbed up to this temple when the pain of longing had broken her completely. To revive the hope in her and to maintain that love in her heart forever, she took her place in the temple and lost herself in the mysticism again."

We weren't even moving except our eyelids.

"She suffered what I did. What female Lycans feel when they don't find their mates in the same territory. To not let them break in this deep hurt of longing, this temple becomes a home for them. Severa protects them. Us. Make us feel loved," she said while looking lost in her own world. "We are her clan. Her followers. To protect the next generation."

I stared at her with an empathetic smile on my face. "Does your Goddess Severa hates Alpha Rucus?"

I was low-key scared of offending her, won't deny.

She looked at me with blank eyes. "Deep inside, we all love our mates. Despite the odds, we manage to fall in love with them. The more you push that growing ache in that heart to the back of it, the more it gets pulled to your mate's chest." She smiled slightly. "You know the feeling, Misty."

My smile faded and my heart fluttered hard. I looked away at feeling the sudden shivers upon my back.

I bit my lip. The thought of what Karam must be doing at the moment started to revolve in my mind.

But I couldn't get distracted.

My heart ached slightly.

"So, she loves her mate. Then, why was she focusing more on collecting the females rather than planning to break the border?" I asked softly.

Lucine blinked warmly. "Every pack has loyal members. Mostly, all of them. But there will always be a member or a little group of members who deep in their heart hold thoughts different from what goes on later in the pack. Some stay quiet and die slowly. Some rebel and die fast. Some stay quiet and rebel secretly, they stay alive in the hearts. Not all members of a Nation are fully satisfied or agree with the current reign. A critic will always be there for the good."

My lips parted in enlightenment.

"Severa might hate her brothers for what they did to the pack she could have ruled and called hers someday. But she never forgets that they were her brothers. We keep the daughters who could be hurt like her safe. But this doesn't mean rebelling. We are a part of this pack. We will be loyal to this land. This pack is yet to get the quiet section of people who can rebel secretly." She said, making me gulp slowly.

Giving me the knowing look as if she knew what Chelsea and I would do, she looked away. "Or maybe, it has gotten."

I looked at the clouds.

"But wouldn't it be beautiful to see the history replacing history," she said softly. Looking at me, she wondered, "Without the borders, the pain would lessen."

My heart calmed down at her words.

"But are the packs ready for this? Are the Lycans prepared for that kind of arrangement?" She spoke sternly. "I do not take sides as a follower of Severa. But as the daughter of my father, I will be loyal to my pack. If I see any harm happening to any of the Lycan, the betrayer will have to suffer my wrath."

I gulped hard shakily.

"Family comes first, after all. The pack comes first, before anything." She said while looking at me with a small smile.

A distant voice of a bird came from the window. Sweet and loud. For two seconds.

I chewed on my lips while thinking of a question. But her words had started to make me conscious.

"You cannot be both equally. One day you will have to choose between being Severa's follower and the Lucine to your family."

She stared at the window. "That day will arrive soon." She predicted so confidently, my stomach churned.

"But-But. . ." I gulped slightly. "It's not like the border will have vanished if all the Lycans are prepared?" I asked her.

She looked at me and smiled. "We don't know what will remove the border or if it can be removed too. We only know that it was asked by a man wanting to protect his pack from the ruthless monsters who he couldn't fight himself."

"Be prepared, I meant if Lycans would be able to respect the wolves." She said while I stared at the wall. "The border was asked by someone from the other side. It can only be removed by someone from the other side only. But that cannot take place if the border hasn't fulfilled its purpose. Lycans are still what they were centuries ago."

My vision turned blurry.

"So, the border would never vanish?" I whispered in hopelessness. "I will never be able to reach back to my world."

She breathed softly.

"The border won't be in your mind if you remember that you are someone's whole world here."

_____

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