Before she could finish the thought, the voice spoke again ,"But from where I stand, you seem to have suffered more losses than I have."
Shiqi turned fully then. And the people frozen on the podium had changed. Instead stood a large golden wolf, with three black wolves behind her...
Her eyes widened. No... A golden wolf... Emira? No. It couldn’t be. But even as she met the wolf’s gaze, a sharp, broken gasp escaped her mouth. For a moment, her mind refused to accept what her eyes were seeing.
"No..." she whispered.
The golden wolf lowered her head slightly, and in the next instant, light rippled across her form. Bone shifted. Fur faded. The wolf stood upright, reshaping, until Emira stood there in human form.
"How are you here? How did you get there?" Shiqi asked hoarsely, unable to believe her eyes.
Her gaze dropped suddenly to the woman she had thrown aside earlier. Desperation gave her strength to kick the woman who moved the moment her foot touched her stomach.
Slowly, the woman pushed herself upright and then looked around in shock as she scrambled to her feet.
Her face was pale, her hair loose and tangled, her eyes wide with shock and fear. She looked down at her own hands as if seeing them for the first time, then touched her chest, her throat, her face.
"I—" Her voice broke. "What... what happened?"
Shiqi staggered back.
Her eyes darted wildly between Ramona standing on the ground and Emira standing above the podium. Her mind refused to connect the pieces, even as the truth pressed in from all sides.
"No," she whispered. "That’s not possible."
Her breathing turned shallow. Her hands clenched into fists as she shook her head again and again. "How did you change places?" she demanded. "How did they get switched?"
She looked at Ramona again, then back at Emira, her gaze sharp and frantic now. "When did you switch places with her?"
Emira smiled then.
"Are you really wondering what happened?" she asked softly.
"It is quite simple, actually," Emira continued. "Dark magic. You do remember I am a dark witch...."
Shiqi flinched and shook her head. Then she screamed," There was no magic on Ramona. I checked. I checked for any impersonations even when I held her hand before guiding her to the podium! How did you do swap places with her then?"
Emira smiled again. " You are right. I didn’t swap places with her... And when you checked Ramona, of course there was no cloaking magic or any kind of magic on her... At least. Not outwardly.
Shiqi froze.
For a brief moment, relief flickered across her face, as if she had been proven right. But that relief shattered at Emira’s next words. "Though I must thank the Dark Master for the idea," Emira continued evenly. "He was the one who made me see how simple it really was to deceive someone."
Shiqi turned sharply and her head snapped toward Aron.
He was still standing where he had been all this time. However, he seemed to have no answer and looked just as stunned as she felt.
"What do you mean? Aron? What does she mean?
Aron did not answer. His eyes were fixed on Emira now, as if he was trying to understand something that had slipped past him.
Emira watched them both. Then she lifted her hand and pointed past them, toward one of the figures standing behind Aron Mast.
"Alpha Caspian," she said softly. "Don’t you think I would recognise soul swapping?"
Shiqi stiffened. And so did the dark Lord.
The air around them seemed to tighten as the words sank in. Emira lowered her hand slowly. "Yes," she went on, her voice steady. "I know. You swapped souls with Caspian before, when you came to woo me. You hid inside his body. You used him as a vessel. And no one noticed."
Her eyes remained locked on Shiqi’s face, watching every crack appear.
"You used him until I gave you the voidstone," Emira said. "Only then did you leave his body. And stopped using him... You thought no one would know. But you made one mistake. You tried to take me across to the Redwood Pack’s border. And on that border, in your urgency, you accidentally revealed a trace of dark magic....
Shiqi’s lips parted, but no sound came out. "That trick," Emira said quietly, "was never invisible to me after that.
She took a step forward. "So I did the same thing."
Shiqi shook her head violently. "No," she whispered. "That’s not possible. I would have sensed it."
"You wouldn’t," Emira replied simply. "Because souls are simply vessels.. So, whatever they carry does not really reflect on them...
She glanced at Ramona, who stood trembling a short distance away, still holding herself as if afraid she might disappear again.
"I exchanged my soul with hers the moment she entered this courtyard." Emira said.
Shiqi’s knees weakened. She staggered back a step.
"You checked her body," Emira continued. "You checked for illusions. For bindings. For spells."
Emira gave a sharp smile then. "You never checked her soul."
"When the Goddess descended," Emira said softly, "she did not look at bodies. She looked at souls."
Shiqi swallowed hard. And of course the Goddess saw that the soul on the podium was correct but the body was wrong. So, she corrected it... Because the moment the Goddess accepted my presence, both your and the Dark Master’s magic was pushed back...."
Her voice lowered. "She pulled my soul to where it belonged."
She spread her hands faintly, gesturing to herself, to the podium, to the space she now occupied. "And she returned Ramona to her own body."
Shiqi stared at her, horror flooding her face.
"So when you ask how I got here," Emira said calmly, "the answer is simple. The Dark master helped me. Now, if you’re satisfied with this explanation, I would like to continue my revenge... For the hell you put my mother through."
Emira raised her hand then, already preparing to cast her spell when a magical arrow shot through the air, straight towards her.