Morning did not arrive with light.It came with tension thin, stretched, uneasy like the world itself was holding its breath. The forest around the fractured clearing felt wrong, not hostile but altered, as though it no longer trusted the shape it had worn for centuries. Dew clung to leaves without sparkle. Birds watched without singing.Aria stood at the edge of the sealed fissure long after Rowan and Lucian thought she would move. Her shadow bent strangely at her feet, stretching toward the cracked stone marker as if pulled by memory rather than light.Rowan finally broke the silence. “You’re not just feeling it,” he said. “You’re connected to it.”Aria didn’t deny it. “The Moon masked the fracture. Malachar used it. The gods fed on it. But this—” She exhaled slowly. “This predates all of them.”Lucian rubbed his palms together, unsettled. “You’re saying the world had a balance before gods?”“Yes,” Aria replied. “And it wasn’t kind.”They moved away from the clearing cautiously, eve

The forest did not welcome them.It watched.Branches hung low like skeletal arms trying to cage the path ahead. The mist moved with intention, curling around wolf paws and ankles, tugging like fingers belonging to things that didn’t breathe. The air tasted metallic fear soaked into dew.Aria ran at the center of the formation, her heartbeat steady even as dread scratched its way up her spine. Rowan’s silver fur brushed her left side, Lucian’s shadowed form flanked her right. Behind them, more than thirty wolves moved like a single, determined organism. Not a pack by tradition something newer. Something made by choice rather than blood.That mattered now. Choice was the only power left in a world stripped of gods.They didn’t speak as they ran. There was nothing to say that fear didn’t already scream inside them. The Loyal Howl was ahead wolves loyal to a dead order, desperate to bring back the Moon’s rule by any sacrifice necessary.And they only needed one sacrifice: Aria.Branches

Chaos struck without mercy.Malachar moved like a nightmare given flesh, each step sending vibrations through the roots of the world. Power poured from him like dark fire, twisting the air, warping reality. Trees bent toward him as if compelled to worship. The sky churned, struggling to hold its own shape.Aria stood with Rowan and Lucian at her side, wolves gathering behind them in a shield of fur and fangs. Fear was there raw and heavy but so was resolve sharper than any blade.Rowan lunged first, silver lightning in wolf form, aiming for Malachar’s throat. Malachar caught him mid-air and slammed him into a cracked pillar. Rowan’s snarl was cut by pain, but he forced himself up again, refusing defeat.Lucian was already in motion, shifting into his hybrid form tall, monstrous, shadow-born. Claws of night carved through the air, slashing Malachar’s chest. Sparks flew as if steel struck stone. Malachar growled not from pain, but annoyance and hurled Lucian backward with a single pulse

The battlefield lay silent under a sky too dark to be called night. The moon that had raged like a burning god now hid behind storm clouds, ashamed to cast light upon the suffering of those who survived. The earth was cracked open scars carved by wolves who fought like gods and monsters who died like tyrants.Aria sat in the center of it all, Rowan’s head resting in her lap. His blood stained her hands, her face, her clothes, the ground beneath her knees. No healing glow remained in her palms. No magic flickered beneath her skin. Her power had vanished with Malachar’s death. All she was left with Was grief.Lucian stood several feet away, not daring to come closer. Even he shadow-born, hardened by loss could not withstand the devastation in Aria’s eyes. The other wolves what few remained kept their distance. Broken. Exhausted. Mourning their own.But Aria did not look up. She stared at Rowan’s face as if memorizing every detail could force the world to change its mind.“You promised

The world returned to sound slowly like water rising over drowning ears. Aria’s eyes fluttered open to the bitter taste of ash and the scent of blood thick in the air. Every breath hurt, scraping her lungs like claws. Her head pounded, matching the ache in her chest where grief burned like a wildfire refusing to die.Rowan.She forced her body upright with a groan, silver dust falling from her skin as the last remnants of power faded. The ground beneath her hands was cracked and scorched from the force of her rage. Wolves limped through the wreckage around her, lost and shaken, but alive.Her vision focused on him.Rowan lay where she had fallen against him. Unmoved. Unresponsive. So still the night itself seemed terrified to disturb him.Aria crawled to him on trembling knees, fingers digging into dirt. Her breath hitched as she touched his face again cold, too cold.“No…” she whispered, the same denial as before, but now heavy and resigned. “Don’t leave me. Please.”Her hands shook