The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 196

The first symbol

The first symbol

(Isla)

I remained inside the circle without moving.

After a while, I forgot I was waiting for anything to happen. The quiet became easier to accept, and my thoughts became clearer than they’d been all morning.

“Caius,” I said softly.

“Yes?”

“I think I understand.”

His expression stayed calm.

“What do you understand?”

“I came here expecting the symbol to teach me something.”

He nodded.

“But the first lesson wasn’t in the symbol.”

He smiled.

“No.”

“It was in me.”

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then Caius reached for the journal and turned to the next page.

“That’s exactly where we needed to begin.”

Caius turned another page of the journal before holding it out for me to see.

“The first lesson was learning how to approach the symbols,” he said. “The second is learning how to wake

them.”

I looked from the page to the drawing still resting in the dirt.

“How?”

“Draw it yourself.”

I looked at the page again before lowering my eyes to the ground.

“The same one?” I asked.

Caius nodded.

“The symbol doesn’t create your gift,” he said. “It helps you reach it.”

< The first symmet

Hooked back at him.

“So the power is already inside me?”

“It always has been

I thought about that as I picked up the stick.

Carefully, I copied the symbol into the dirt beside the first one.

When I finished, I looked at Caius.

“What now?”

“Stand inside the one you drew.”

I did.

For a moment, nothing changed.

Then I felt something shift deep inside me.

Not around me.

Inside me.

It wasn’t painful.

It wasn’t overwhelming.

It was more like something that had been asleep was beginning to stir.

I caught my breath.

“Caius…”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know.”

He stepped a little closer.

“But I think your gift recognizes the symbol.”

I looked down at my hands. Silver light appeared across my skin, then disappeared.

“It stopped.”

“For now,” he said.

I looked back at him.

“This isn’t about forcing your gift awake,” he said. “It’s about learning how to answer when it calls.

Clas

< The first symbol

Howered my eyes to the symbol again.

understood then that the journal wasn’t teaching me magic.

It was teaching me how to reach the magic that had always belonged to me.

Caius waited without saying anything else. I stood inside the symbol and looked down at the lines beneath my feet. The light had disappeared. So had the strange feeling inside me.

“Did I lose it?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then where did it go?”

“It returned to where it came from.”

I frowned.

“So! have to find it again?”

He nodded once.

“Every time.”

Claim

I drew a slow breath and closed my eyes. I didn’t force it. I didn’t chase it. I simply remembered what I’d felt a moment earlier.

Gradually, the same feeling returned. It started deep inside me before spreading through the rest of my body. When I opened my eyes, silver light covered my hands once more. I watched it carefully without saying a word.

The glow remained for only a few seconds before disappearing again. I looked at my hands, hoping it would come back. It didn’t. I looked up at Caius instead.

“It answered again,” I whispered.

Caius smiled.

“And tomorrow you’ll make it answer a little faster.”

I looked down at the symbol beneath my feet. The journal had given me a place to begin. The gift was already mine. I just had to learn how to reach it.

Caius bent down and brushed the first symbol out of the dirt with his boot. He turned another page of the journal and stopped halfway through. The symbol waiting there was different from the first. Even at a glance, I could tell it wasn’t meant for the same lesson.

“We’re not using that one today?” I asked.

“No,” Caius replied. “One lesson at a time.”

He closed the journal and tucked it beneath his arm.

“Your gift answered twice today. That’s enough for now. Pushing it further won’t make it stronger”

< The first symbol

Claim

Hooked back at the empty patch of dirt. Part of me wanted to keep trying. Another part understood why he was stopping me. I knew he wasn’t trying to hold me back.

“The next symbol does something different?” I asked.

“It reaches a different part of your gift,” he said. “When you’re ready, we’ll find out which part.”

“What happens after I learn all the symbols?” I asked.

Caius met my eyes.

“Well find out together.”

I frowned.

“You really don’t know?”

“No.”

He rested one hand on the journal.

“This has guided every Alpha King before me, but none of them were training a Celestial wolf.”

I looked down at the worn pages.

“So some of this is new.”

“It is,” he said. “We’ll learn what comes next when we get there.”

Caius closed the journal completely and held it at his side. The lesson was over, even if my mind was still racing. Questions kept coming faster than I could ask them. I had a feeling that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

“Can anyone else see the light?” I asked.

“If it’s there, yes.”

“So it wasn’t only me.”

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