<h4>Chapter 181: The Hunt Begins</h4>


    <strong>LILY POV</strong>


    I ripped open a portal just as the Void Harvester’s drain reached us, grabbing both Kestrel and my son before the thing could suck the life from our bodies.


    We tumbled through twisting dimensions,nding hard in what looked like a world made entirely of crystal. Everything around us sparkled like diamonds, but I barely had time to notice before Kestrel was on his feet, scanning the distance.


    "That was foolish," he said to my son. "Void Harvesters don’t distinguish between friend and enemy. It would have eaten you too."


    My son - I still couldn’t think of him as anything else, even though he was ancient and scary - shrugged with frightening calm. "Better to die fighting than live as a prisoner."


    "Nobody has to die!" I shouted, my feelings still raw from everything that had happened. The sadness from Elder Iris’s death, the protectiveness I felt for my pack, the love for Caleb - they were all churning inside me like a storm.


    Kestrel studied me with those strange eyes of his. "You’re feeling again. That’s new since thest Triple Moon bearer I tracked."


    "Thest one?" I asked. "There have been others?"


    "Seven, across different worlds. All of them started the same way - trying to help, trying to heal. All of them finished the same way too."


    A chill ran down my spine. "How did they end?"


    Before Kestrel could answer, the crystal world around us started to shake. Cracks emerged in the beautiful structures, spreading outward from where we stood.


    "We have to move," Kestrel said quickly. "Your presence is destabilizing this reality too."


    I opened another portal, this time to a world that looked like endless water under a green sky. But even there, the water began to churn fiercely within minutes of our arrival.


    "It’s getting worse," I realized with rising horror. "The more I use my abilities, the more damage I cause."


    "That’s why you need toe with me," Kestrel said, not unkindly. "Learn control before you identally destroy everything you’re trying to save."


    My sonughed bitterly. "Control? She doesn’t need power. She needs to embrace what she is. Stop pretending to be weak."


    "I’m not pretending anything!" I yelled at him. "I’m trying to figure out how to help people without hurting them!"


    "Then you’re wasting time we don’t have," my son responded. "While you y at being gentle, your pack is suffering."


    He was right, and that hurt worse than anything. Through my fading link to Silver Peak, I could feel Caleb’s pain as the dimensional hunters attacked our bonds. I could sense Aiden nning to make some terrible sacrifice, and Brock fighting enemies he couldn’t even see.


    "Show me," I ordered, turning to Kestrel. "Show me what’s happening to them."


    Kestrel paused, then opened another viewing portal. What I saw made my heart break.


    Caleb was on his knees in our cabin, blood trickling from his nose as something unseen tore at his mind. Aiden stood in the pack clearing with Elder Henrik, making some kind of ritual that looked like it would kill him. Brock was facing creatures made of shadow and hunger, losing badly.


    And all of it was happening because they were linked to me.


    "I have to go back," I said, starting to open a link.


    "No!" Both Kestrel and my son said at the same time.


    "If you return now, you’ll lead every hunter in the dimensionalwork straight to your pack," Kestrel stated. "They’ll all die."


    "And if I don’t return, they’ll die anyway from the attacks on our bonds," I shot back.


    "There might be another way," my son said slowly. "But you won’t like it."


    I looked at him warily. "What way?"


    "Break the ties yourself. Cut every link you have to your home reality. The hunters can’t use ties that don’t exist."


    The idea hit me like a physical blow. "That would mean giving up Caleb forever. Giving up my entire pack."


    "To save their lives," my son pointed out.


    "He’s right," Kestrel admitted unwillingly. "It’s the only way to protect them from the other hunters."


    I felt tears running down my face. After months of feeling nothing, now I was feeling too much all at once. The love I had for Caleb, the protectiveness I felt for my pack, the sadness of losing Elder Iris - it was all tangled together in a knot of pain that made it hard to breathe.


    "But if I break the bonds," I whispered, "how will I ever find my way home again?"


    "You won’t," Kestrel said softly. "That’s the point. You’ll live between dimensions, helping people across multiple realities without endangering any single world."


    "A lonely existence," my son noted. "Just like mine has been."


    I looked between them - the hunter who wanted to contain me and the void creature who imed to be my child. Both of them alone, both of them powerful, both of them trying to fix problems by cutting themselves off from connection.


    "No," I said suddenly. "There has to be a third option."


    "Lily," Kestrel warned, "there isn’t time to—"


    "There’s always time to find a better way," I interrupted. "That’s what makes us different from monsters."


    But even as I spoke, rms started ringing across the ocean world. In the distance, I could see massive shapes moving beneath the waves - more Void Harvesters, drawn by the dimensional instability we were causing.


    "They found us," my son said, void energy sparking around him.


    "No," Kestrel replied, pulling out weapons I didn’t recognize. "They found her. Lily, you need to run. Now."


    "What about you two?"


    "We’ll buy you time," Kestrel said. "Try to lead them away."


    My son nodded in agreement. "Find your third choice, mother. But find it fast."


    I opened a portal to yet another world, my heart breaking as I prepared to leave them behind. But as I stepped through, I heard something that made my blood freeze.


    The sound of my pack howling in pain, their cries somehow reaching me across dimensions.


    The hunters had found Silver Peak.


    And I was too far away to save anyone.