The Alpha Who Regrets Losing Me

Chapter 95: Chapter 95 – The First Failed Attempt

When Elara stepped through the gate, it was not only darkness that greeted her. It felt more like a place that had been holding its breath for a very long time had finally noticed her. From the outside, Black Moon Archive had looked like a structure, but inside, there was something older than stone, walls, or gates. This place did not only keep records. This place remembered. And everything it remembered turned silently toward Elara.

Kael entered from her left. Rowan from her right. Talon stayed a little behind, while Erynd stood behind Rowan. The gate did not close behind them, but the mist remained before the entrance like a heavy curtain. Everyone who entered felt clearer, but the bonds were quieter. Kael’s fire was still on Elara’s left. Rowan’s path was still on her right. Yet neither of them could reach into Elara as easily as before. The archive kept them side by side, but did not allow them to merge into one another.

Talon looked around and spoke in a low voice. "This does not look like an archive."

Elara did not answer. Because Talon was right. There were no shelves, books, or documents before them. There was a very long hall. Black stone walls rose upward, and the ceiling disappeared into the darkness. On the walls were erased faces, unfinished writings, and sentences not yet completed. Some letters changed as Elara looked at them, while others moved from their place as if they had been waiting for her arrival.

Rowan’s voice came low. "This is not a record."

Elara looked at the faces on the walls. "This is memory."

That word was swallowed in the hall before it could echo.

In the center of the floor, there was a long line that looked like black glass. When Elara looked down, she expected to see her own reflection. But first Seren’s face appeared. Then other women. Some were very young. Some were old. Some carried wolf blood, some carried witch lines, and some looked almost entirely human. Around all of them was a pale trace that resembled stained moonlight.

The Moon Spirit spoke inside her. "Not all of them were vessels."

Elara asked inwardly, "What do you mean?"

"Some had been prepared. Some had been tested. Some had only touched the moon’s shadow at the wrong moment."

Elara’s chest grew heavy. Black Moon Archive did not only keep the vessels. It held everyone the moon had touched. Those who succeeded, those who failed, those who could never be completed, and perhaps those who should never have been completed at all.

A voice rose from deep inside the hall. It did not sound like the woman’s voice Elara had heard in the tower. It was more like an old echo crawling out from within the stone.

"The new vessel remembered."

Kael immediately came a little closer on Elara’s left. Rowan stood on her right. Both of their bodies prepared for attack at the same time. Elara was calm, and Seren’s warning stirred again in her mind. Fire and path. Do not let them turn against each other.

Elara lifted her head. "I remembered," she said. "But I did not come to answer."

Some of the faces on the walls turned toward her. Talon’s hand tightened as if ready to release his claws. Erynd held his breath. Kael’s gaze remained on Elara. Rowan was watching the moving letters on the walls.

The voice asked again, "Then why did you come?"

Before Elara answered, the fourth line in her chest moved. This time, it did not guide her. It responded more to something inside the archive. As if the emptiness inside this place was trying to recognize the emptiness inside her.

"I came to learn who you wanted to make me," Elara said. "And who you did not allow me to become."

A pale light appeared at the end of the hall. It was not white. It was not moonlight either. It was a glow leaking from inside the black stone. As the light grew, it took a shape like a door. There was no writing on it, but Elara felt its meaning and said it aloud. "Those who remained empty."

Kael’s voice lowered. "I do not like that name at all."

Elara walked toward the door. Kael and Rowan moved with her. But the black line on the floor suddenly split into three. A dark path close to red appeared before Kael. A pale blue path before Rowan. And before Elara, a thin line stretched out like darkened moonlight.

Talon grunted from behind. "Of course. Because walking straight to the same door would have been too easy."

Erynd spoke more carefully. "The paths are separate, but the door is the same."

Rowan looked at him for a brief moment. "Good observation." A very faint pride appeared on Erynd’s face.

Kael’s attention was still on Elara. "It is trying to separate us."

Elara turned to him. "No. It is trying to show how the Moon Spirit was lost before."

Kael’s gaze shifted to Rowan for a moment. Rowan looked at him too. The rivalry between them had not disappeared. But another weight had settled over it now. Seren’s memory was still between them.

Kael spoke in a low voice. "I will not fight him."

Rowan’s answer did not delay. "Nor I with you."

Elara looked at them both. Hearing these sentences did not soothe her. Because words were easy. The archive did not use words. It used wounds.

The door made of light opened by itself. Inside, fragments of memories hung in the air. Old seals bound to black stones, women laid on white tables, bodies kneeling beneath moonlight, and older, rougher devices of the World Government. Time had changed, but the intention had remained the same.

Then the images turned not to Elara, but to Kael. Kael stopped. A scene opened inside the black wall. The man running beside Seren beneath the rain appeared clearer this time. He resembled Kael, but there was a softer exhaustion on his face.

"Darian," Kael said. His voice suddenly tightened. "Brother..."

Darian seemed to have fallen to his knees before a black stone. A red-like light was being drawn from his hands. Across from him stood a woman whose face had still not become clear. Elara recognized her immediately. She was the owner of the silhouette Elara had seen in the tower. The woman inside the archive. The being Seren had called "the emptiness left behind the vessels." The World Government thought it was using her, and Adrian believed he had discovered her. But Elara now felt that this was not true. This woman was far older than the system they had built. She was not someone being controlled, but something born from the emptiness inside the cycle.

The woman’s voice came from within the image. "If you want to protect her, give me your fire."

Darian lifted his head. "Where is Seren?"

"At the door."

"You are lying."

The woman laughed softly. "Of course. But you came to believe anyway."

Kael took one step. Even though he knew he could not touch the image, his body did not want to accept it. Elara only stood beside him. "Kael."

Kael’s eyes were on Darian. "What did they do to him?"

In the image, the woman touched Darian’s shoulder. The red light where she touched went out. It did not look like death. It was worse. As if not only life, but his own fire had been taken from him.

The archive whispered, "The fire was taken. The vessel still did not return."

Something appeared on Kael’s face that Elara had never seen before. There was anger, but beneath the anger stood a more naked pain. Not the pain of an Alpha, but the pain of a brother who had searched for his older brother through false stories for years.

Elara’s voice came low. "They want to show you this."

Kael spoke harshly. "I know."

Elara continued. "Not to turn you against Rowan. To make you doubt your own fire."

Kael finally looked at her. His eyes were dark. "My brother gave his fire. He still could not save her."

Elara moved a little closer to him. Only a breath of distance remained between them. "Then stop trying to save me and fight with me."

Kael’s gaze dropped to her lips for a brief moment. This time, when he pulled himself back, it did not look like weakness, but like restraining the fire inside himself. "That will not be easy."

Elara’s voice was almost a whisper. "I did not ask for something easy."

Rowan’s voice came from behind. "Elara."

Elara turned. The images before Rowan had opened to him this time. Young Rowan and Seren appeared again, but this time, behind Seren, there was an old seal tinged with blue. It was not Lucien’s seal. It was older. Deeper. Something that belonged to before the current border line of Rowan’s family.

Erynd’s voice trembled. "Alpha, that symbol is not in our records."

Rowan’s voice was very low. "Because Lucien keeps the records."

In the image, Seren was looking at young Rowan. "If you love me, stop believing that you can save me."

This time, another whisper was heard after the sentence.

"If he opens the path, we will take her."

Rowan’s face went completely white. Elara understood immediately. Seren had not only feared that Rowan’s love would be used. She had feared that the path Rowan would open would become a trap. The path would not be used to bring Seren back. It would be used to take her.

Rowan’s voice was almost too low to hear. "I did not open the path."

The archive answered. "But you wanted to."

That sentence was heavier than every stone in the hall.

Elara approached Rowan. Kael remained behind. This time, he did not follow. Seren’s warning stood between them like an invisible line.

Elara came to stand before Rowan. "They are showing you this and using it to break you."

Rowan’s gaze lowered to her. "I know."

Elara did not extend her wrist to him. Not because she did not want to touch him this time. Because she knew some wounds should not be covered immediately by someone else’s hand. "Then do not make decisions from the place where you are broken."

A small movement crossed Rowan’s face. Because Rowan had always built order from the places where he had broken. Silence, distance, control. All of it looked like a kind of order. But perhaps they were only well-folded wounds.

At that moment, Darian’s fire and Rowan’s seal were pulled into the center of the hall. When the two memories touched, an empty black moon appeared between them. It gave no light and no shadow. It looked more like something that should have existed had been removed from its place. The fourth line in Elara’s chest answered it.

For the first time, the Moon Spirit spoke with alarm. "Step back."

Elara asked inwardly, "Why?"

"Because this emptiness knows me."

The woman’s voice rose very clearly this time. "The new vessel has seen the pain of fire and the guilt of the path."

The writings on the walls of the hall moved at the same time. Seren’s name appeared for an instant, then vanished. Darian’s fire went out inside the stone as a red trace. The path Rowan had wanted to open but could not opened as a blue line and reached Elara’s feet. The archive was no longer telling the past. It was rebuilding it.

The woman continued. "Now the cycle can be completed with the choice." frёeωebɳovel.com

Kael’s voice came immediately. "Elara, do not answer her."

Rowan spoke more calmly, but more sharply. "Do not think she is giving you a choice. This is not a choice. It is a new name for the old trap."

Elara heard them both. But she did not take her eyes off the emptiness at the center of the black moon. Because the emptiness was looking at her. Not only at the Moon Spirit inside her. It was looking at old Elara, at her fears, her desires, and everything she was afraid to lose. As if it did not want to complete her, but to open her from her weakest place.

Seren’s voice opened again inside her mind. Those who love you will try to save you. Those who rule you will try to use you. And the moon inside you will try to complete you. None of these are safe on their own.

The woman’s voice softened. That softness was more dangerous. "You can choose the fire that saves you. You can choose the path that brings you back. Or you can abandon the human side that leaves you incomplete and become whole."

A very faint, dark expression appeared on Elara’s lips. "You still do not understand."

The hall fell silent. Elara stood before the black moon. "I am not someone to be saved. I am not someone to be brought back. And I am certainly not an empty body for you to complete."

The emptiness narrowed for an instant. The woman’s voice went cold. "Your own voice did not bring you here."

"No," Elara said. "But from now on, it will decide which voice I listen to."

With that sentence, all the writing on the archive walls stopped. The faces fell silent. The old breath inside the stones was cut off for a moment. It was as if Black Moon Archive was not recording something for the first time, but trying to understand something.

Then the final sentence that had appeared from Seren’s stone appeared again on the walls of the hall.

The name is still hidden.

The Moon Spirit remained silent inside Elara. But this time, the silence felt like the weight of standing on the same side for the first time.

The emptiness inside the black moon slowly opened. Not like a door. Like a wound. Behind it was darkened moonlight. And inside that light stood the silhouette of the woman Elara had seen in the tower. Her face was still not clear, but the stone around her neck was shining.

Kael’s voice came low. "I think we are about to meet the woman inside the archive."

Rowan’s voice was heavier. "I think she has known us from the beginning."

The woman looked at Elara from within the darkened moonlight. Then she smiled.

"You are late," she said.

Elara did not answer.

The woman’s smile deepened a little. "But this time, you did not come alone."

The emptiness inside the black moon opened a little more. Elara understood in that moment. This woman was not the Moon Spirit. She was the first failed attempt bound inside the archive.