Chapter 125 - 25
Chapter 125 – Hello, Mother
POV: Liora
For the first time since the twins were born, I was completely alone with them.
No healer stood near the bed pretending not to watch them. No servant moved quietly around the room. No guard remained stationed outside my chamber with orders to report every unusual thing I did. Even Kael was gone, called away to deal with the growing unrest within the fortress.
It should have been peaceful.
Instead, I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed with both children lying in front of me, staring at them as though I were trying to solve a mystery written across their faces.
The room was warm, the curtains were drawn halfway against the evening light, and the faint scent of herbs lingered in the air from the healing medicines the servants had been using on me. Everything looked ordinary.
The twins were the only thing that wasn’t.
They lay beside each other beneath the same silver blanket, awake and completely silent. Their tiny hands rested against their chests, their faces peaceful, their silver eyes fixed on me with that same unsettling awareness I had noticed since the moment I first saw them.
I had spent the entire afternoon trying to convince myself that I was overthinking everything.
I had survived twenty-six failed lives.
I had memories that belonged to people who technically shouldn’t exist.
I carried the souls of those lives inside me.
Kael’s soul was intertwined with mine.
The White Wolf bloodline had awakened in a way no record had predicted.
I had given birth to twins who could sense things before they happened.
Perhaps after everything I had experienced, it was natural that I would see meaning in every little movement.
Perhaps I was simply exhausted.
Perhaps I was afraid.
Perhaps I was searching for something impossible because my life had become impossible.
I leaned closer to them.
"You’re making me nervous, you know that?"
Neither child moved.
I smiled faintly.
"You both have been staring at me for days."
The boy blinked once.
The girl didn’t blink at all.
I shook my head.
"That isn’t helping."
Still nothing.
I reached toward the boy and gently touched his cheek. His skin was warm and impossibly soft beneath my fingertips. He turned his face slightly into my palm, but his eyes remained fixed on mine.
The movement should have melted my heart.
It did.
But it also frightened me.
There was something deliberate about the way he watched me.
Something too focused.
Too aware.
I moved my hand to the girl’s cheek.
She reacted in the same way, turning slightly toward my touch while continuing to study my face.
I swallowed.
"Do you know who I am?"
The question sounded foolish the moment I asked it.
They were newborns.
They couldn’t answer.
At least, that was what I had been telling myself.
I looked between them.
"You know I’m your mother, don’t you?"
The moment the words left my mouth, something inside me shifted.
The connection I shared with them became stronger.
Not dramatically.
Not violently.
Just enough for me to feel their awareness brushing against mine.
Warm.
Curious.
Present.
I held my breath.
For a moment, I thought I sensed something else.
Recognition.
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, they were still staring at me.
I laughed quietly, trying to break the strange tension that had settled over the room.
"You can’t really understand me yet."
The thought sounded ridiculous.
I knew it did.
Yet a strange part of me wasn’t convinced.
I had already accepted that they were different.
I had accepted that they could sense things before they happened.
I had accepted that they were connected to me in a way I couldn’t explain.
But there was still one boundary I refused to cross.
They were newborns.
They couldn’t speak.
They couldn’t possibly speak.
That was the one normal thing I had left.
I reached for the boy’s tiny hand and wrapped my fingers around it.
His fingers closed around mine.
The sensation sent warmth through my chest.
"There," I whispered. "That’s better."
His eyes remained on me.
I looked toward his sister.
"And you."
She watched me silently.
"You two are going to give me trouble, aren’t you?"
For the first time, something changed in their expressions.
Not a smile.
Not exactly.
Their eyes shifted.
They looked at each other.
My breathing stopped.
The boy turned his head toward his sister.
The girl did the same.
They stared at one another for several seconds.
I watched them carefully.
"What are you doing?"
Neither responded.
Then they both turned back toward me.
At exactly the same time.
My stomach tightened.
I felt something in the room change.
The air seemed heavier.
The connection between us suddenly became clearer.
I could feel their awareness pressing gently against mine.
Two separate presences.
Two distinct souls.
Yet perfectly synchronized.
I sat completely still.
"Is something wrong?"
The twins stared at me.
Then their mouths opened.
My mind didn’t understand what I was seeing.
At first, I thought one of them was simply making a sound.
Newborns made sounds all the time.
Small noises.
Unformed noises.
Nothing meaningful.
Then the boy spoke.
His voice was tiny.
Soft.
But perfectly clear.
"Hello, Mother."
I stopped breathing.
My entire body froze.
For a second, I couldn’t even understand the words.
They were words.
Actual words.
Coming from him.
My eyes widened.
My fingers remained wrapped around his tiny hand.
I stared at his face.
He stared back at me.
Then his sister spoke.
"Hello, Mother."
The exact same voice.
The exact same tone.
Perfectly clear.
Perfectly calm.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t blink.
I couldn’t speak.
The world seemed to tilt beneath me.
The room was exactly as it had been seconds earlier.
The candles still burned.
The curtains still moved gently with the evening breeze.
The blankets were still wrapped around their tiny bodies.
Nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
I stared at them.
They stared at me.
Neither seemed confused.
Neither seemed frightened.
Neither seemed to understand that what they had just done should have been impossible.
They simply watched me.
Waiting.
My mind searched desperately for an explanation.
Magic.
The White Wolf.
The bloodline.
The souls.
Some manifestation of power.
Anything.
I tried to form a thought.
Nothing coherent came.
I opened my mouth.
No sound came out.
The boy’s fingers tightened slightly around mine.
The girl moved her tiny hand against the blanket.
Both continued watching me.
I felt their awareness again.
This time it was stronger.
Not just curiosity.
Expectation.
They were waiting for me to respond.
My heart pounded harder.
I looked at the boy.
Then at the girl.
Then back at the boy.
"Did you..."
My voice failed.
I swallowed and tried again.
"Did you just speak?"
They didn’t answer.
Instead, they looked at each other again.
Then back at me.
I felt a cold sensation move down my spine.
Because I suddenly understood something that frightened me more than the words themselves.
They hadn’t spoken accidentally.
They hadn’t repeated something they heard.
They hadn’t stumbled over sounds.
They had looked directly at me.
And they had greeted me.
As though they had known exactly what they wanted to say.
As though they had been waiting for the right moment.
I remained completely still.
My mind refused to process what had happened.
I couldn’t react.
I couldn’t scream.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t even reach for them.
I simply stared.
The twins stared back.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath the White Wolf, beneath the memories, beneath Kael’s presence and every soul I carried, something whispered the truth I wasn’t ready to accept.
They weren’t ordinary children.
They had never been ordinary children.
And whatever had awakened inside them had been awake long before they ever opened their eyes.
I looked at their tiny faces again.
My children.
My impossible children.
My hands finally began to tremble.
The boy’s eyes softened.
The girl’s expression remained calm.
Then, without moving their lips this time, I felt something brush against my consciousness.
Two voices.
One thought.
Mother.
I stared at them, completely unable to move.
Not because I was calm.
Because my mind had simply refused to understand what I had just heard.