WAR OF HEARTS ↠ KOL MIKAELSON [1]

2:22

| THE STAND:
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO |

MONROE ANCESTRAL LIMBO – TIMELESS SPACE

"Gran, where are we?" Rhea asked, blinking rapidly as the brilliant white light around her cleared. She turned in place, Ares standing just beside her, equally disoriented. The surroundings shimmered like a pristine dream, everything whitewashed—distant walls with no texture, no ceiling above, no floor below—just light.

"This isn't... Earth," Ares muttered under his breath.

"No," Demetria confirmed with a small, amused smile. Her eyes twinkled like the stars Rhea used to trace in her spellbooks as a child. "This is where our bloodline comes when we pass. A sacred liminal space—our own ancestral limbo. We never played well with others, so why share the afterlife?"

She chuckled softly, though her tone held something grave beneath the whimsy.

"Wait," Rhea narrowed her eyes, "if we're here... are we dead?"

Demetria lifted her chin. "Not quite. But I did need you both unconscious at the exact same moment to pull you here. You can thank Hayley and Marcel for the knockout act. They were already going to distract you—it just took a whisper in the right place to plant the idea."

Ares raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "So you... Incepted them?"

Demetria tilted her head. "I prefer the term spiritually advised." She grinned, and the siblings—despite their confusion—laughed. It was a warm sound, a rare thing in the chaos their lives had become.

"So why are we here?" Rhea asked, her voice quieter now.

Demetria's smile faded. "To finish the spell."

Ares scoffed, "Yeah, with what magic? We're running on fumes, Gran. Mother took everything."

"No," Demetria said calmly, gently, as if correcting a child's mistake. "Your mother is dead."

For a moment, it didn't register. Her voice was too serene. Then both Rhea and Ares stiffened simultaneously.

"What?" Rhea finally breathed.

Demetria took a seat in a conjured wooden chair—elegant and ancient-looking, as if from some Grecian court. Two more appeared beside it.

"Come. Sit. It's a long story."

They obeyed, sinking down slowly into the chairs that hadn't existed seconds ago.

"Your mother... Leto was consumed by her own greed," Demetria began. "She murdered me—her own mother. She tried to kill you both. And when she came back, broken and half-crazed, she attempted to rip the last of your power away from you. Our ancestors don't interfere often—but when she started desecrating covens, stirring war between families who've kept peace for centuries, they acted."