Page 45 of Demonic Affliction

"What's going on?" I ask. “Why is everyone here?”

Dagny takes a step forward, fixing her face into a neutral expression. “We need to have a talk, Willow.”

“About?”

She sighs, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. “Your mates explained what’s been happening to you. About the serafyn inhabiting your body.”

Everything I was going to say dies in my throat. “They did?”

She nods solemnly. “They were worried about your well-being, and rightly so. I wish they had come to us sooner with the information, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.”

Rhune’s face crumples with shame. Meanwhile, Nyx and Dravik hold firm. “We did not know how much to trust you with,” Nyx explains. “We did not know how you would react.”

“Still,” Dagny grumbles. “I wish you would have told us.”

“Why?” I ask. “Can you help me?” My heart pounds as I wait for her answer.

She pauses, choosing her next words carefully. “I… do not know. Until this day, we all believed serafyns to be a myth. But…” She looks at her mates. “If the stories are true, then we must do something. Otherwise, the world will end.”

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. All of us are frozen to the spot, terrified by the truth in Dagny’s words.

“I think I might have an idea,” I say.

Every eye in the room turns to me at once.

“What’s your idea, Willow?” Dagny asks, her voice unusually soft.

I twist my fingers in the fur, a wave of self-consciousness flowing over me, curving my shoulders inward. “Well, from what I can gather, Cin is… I think he’s being possessed by a Welwig. Specifically, the Welwig. The one that made this world.”

“What?” Fenryr scoffs. “That is impossible.”

“Everything about this world seems impossible to me, yet it’s real.” I hold my chin up high. “I don’t understand what’s so shocking about what I said.”

“It just… it is not how things work.”

Dagny gazes at her mate. “I don’t know, Fenryr… We didn’t think Slaine could be resurrected, yet he was. Partially, at least. This world works in ways even we don’t understand. I think Willow has a point.”

“Not to mention she has direct access to the serafyn,” Malice points out. “If anyone can piece things together, it would be the one person with the information none of us has.”

Dagny considers this for a moment before her attention settles back on me. “Please. Go on.”

“Well…” I clear my throat. “The serafyn told me this world is sick. Dying. What if, somehow, we healed it? Like, how you guys heal a cut or broken bone.”

“We only have so much power.” Dagny shakes her head. “Even all of us combined… it wouldn’t be enough to heal whatever is wrong with the world.”

“You don’t. But Cin and I do.”

Dagny raises her brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that we both have access to these all-powerful entities. Somehow, if we could tap into that power, maybe we could do something.”

“How would we do that?”

My mind flashes with images of the upside-down Welwig from my dream. The visions… They've been showing me the truth all along. I just never understood before now. The massive room, the glowing red roots. The sickness in the air.

The serafyn must have accidentally projected those images into my mind. It didn’t mean to, but it showed me the core of The Far Place. The area where it all began.

“We have to go to the core.”