Chapter 24

     The air around us thickened, the warmth radiating from the ground in waves, unsettling and oppressive. Ava stood at the shoreline, her back to us, her chant growing louder and more frenzied as the storm gathered above. The sky had darkened, and the Atlantic roared in response, its waves crashing harder against the rocks, as if the ocean itself had been summoned by her call. But there was something else—a presence that had nothing to do with the storm, something older and more dangerous rising from the depths of the land beneath our feet.

     And then, just as suddenly as before, I felt the world shift again. The ground wavered beneath me, and my vision blurred. I wasn’t in the present anymore. I was somewhere else, pulled back into that vision of Henry, the king of Belgium, as though the past was forcing itself into the present.

     The scene unfolded like a memory.

     Henry stood in a darkened room, his features gaunt and drawn, his eyes blazing with something akin to fury—or maybe fear. He was no longer the regal figure I had seen earlier, carefully jimming open a door. Now, his movements were sharp, agitated. His eyes darted around the room, as though he were searching for something—or someone—who had eluded him.

     And then I heard it—his voice, sharp and biting, cutting through the air like a whip.

     "How do you justify thee, parakeet's whelp, thee demented?!?"

     The words echoed in the space, thick with accusation. They weren’t directed at me—they were aimed at someone else, someone just out of sight. I could feel the weight of his words, the intensity of his anger, but also the madness that flickered beneath the surface. He was unraveling, his grip on whatever power he had sought slipping away.

     The door creaked open, and I saw the figure step into the room. It was the woman from the earlier vision—the one who had taken the vial from Henry’s hands, the one who had smiled that slow, deliberate smile. But now, her expression was colder, harder. She didn’t flinch under Henry’s furious gaze. She stood tall, her dark eyes gleaming with something far more dangerous than his anger.

     “Do you think this was ever yours to control?” she said, her voice calm, measured. “You thought you could take it, twist it to your will. But you never understood what you were holding.”

     Henry’s face contorted in rage, his hands trembling as he clenched them into fists. “I was promised power,” he spat. “I was promised control! You—your kind—led me to believe I could rewrite the world!”

     The woman’s smile returned, but it was colder now, sharper. “You were promised nothing but madness,” she said softly. “The power you sought was never yours to claim. It’s been here long before you, long before your ancestors carved their kingdoms from the earth. And it will be here long after you are dust.”

     Henry staggered back, his eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and terror. The madness that had been simmering beneath the surface began to spill over, his movements growing erratic. He reached for something—a dagger, perhaps—but his hand faltered, trembling as though he no longer trusted his own strength.

     “How do you justify this?” he shouted, his voice cracking. “How do you justify your madness?!”

     The woman stepped forward, her eyes never leaving his. “I don’t need to justify anything,” she said quietly. “The land justifies itself.”

     And with that, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving Henry standing there, his face twisted in confusion and rage. The door closed softly behind her, and for a moment, the room was silent. But then Henry let out a scream—a sound that echoed through the building, through the walls, through time itself.

     The vision faded, and I was back on the shoreline.

     Ava’s chant had grown louder now, her voice rising in pitch, the air around her thick with heat and power. The ground trembled beneath us, the warmth intensifying until it was almost unbearable. I could feel the same sense of unraveling that I had seen in Henry’s eyes, the madness that came from trying to control something far older and more powerful than any one person could ever hope to understand.

     Tony stood beside me, his face pale, his eyes fixed on Ava. “What did you see?” he asked, his voice tight with tension.

     I shook my head, still trying to process the vision. “Henry,” I said quietly. “He... he was promised power, control. But he couldn’t handle it. The land—it was too much for him. He thought he could control it, but it drove him mad.”

     Tony’s jaw tightened. “And now Ava’s doing the same thing.”

     I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest. “She’s drawing from the same power, the same force that’s been buried here for centuries. But she doesn’t understand what she’s unleashing.”

     Ava’s voice rang out again, her chant turning into something more primal, more urgent. The storm above us rumbled, the clouds swirling as if the very sky was being torn open. The Atlantic surged, the waves crashing harder against the rocks, and the ground beneath our feet buckled, as though the earth itself was groaning under the weight of what Ava was trying to pull from it.

     “She’s going to destroy everything,” Tony muttered, his voice shaking with fear.

     I glanced at him, seeing the fear in his eyes, but also the determination. “We have to stop her,” I said, my voice firm. “Before she loses control completely.”

     But as I spoke, I could feel something else—a presence, a memory, stirring in the back of my mind. The woman in the vision, the one who had spoken to Henry—there was something familiar about her, something that felt tied to Ava’s actions now. She had been the real power behind Henry, the one who had understood the cost of tapping into the land’s hidden forces.

     And now, as Ava stood on the precipice of that same madness, I realized that the woman’s legacy hadn’t been forgotten. It had been passed down, buried deep within the land, waiting for someone like Ava to awaken it.

     But Ava wasn’t the heir to that power.

     She was the pawn.

     “Tony,” I said, my voice urgent. “There’s something else going on. Ava—she’s not the one controlling this. She’s just following the same path Henry did.”

     Tony frowned. “What do you mean?”

     “I mean someone else is pulling the strings,” I said. “Someone who’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.”

     Ava’s chant reached a fever pitch, and the air around us crackled with energy. The storm was almost upon us, and I could feel the ground buckling beneath my feet, the warmth surging through the earth like a tidal wave.

     “We don’t have much time,” I said. “We need to act now.”

     Tony nodded, his face grim. “What’s the plan?”

     I glanced back at Ava, her figure silhouetted against the storm, and I knew that whatever happened next would determine the fate of the land, of the city, of everything that had been buried for centuries.

     “We stop her,” I said, my voice steady. “And then we find out who’s really behind all of this.”