The forest moved differently now. Where once Aria had wandered terrified and lost, she walked with an army’s weight behind her wolves bowing their heads as she passed. The air smelled of rain, healing herbs, and lingering battle smoke. Rowan’s breathing remained shallow, barely a whisper against her neck as she carried him, Selene close by, guiding the surviving pack into abandoned dens and moss-covered shelters.The sky was beginning to lighten the faintest gray bleeding into the black horizon. Dawn was coming.And with it, consequences.Aria laid Rowan down softly on a moss-draped stone slab inside a half-collapsed den. His chest returned to that painful, fragile rhythm. Every few moments his hand twitched, like his body was fighting some hidden chain.“He’s still battling,” Selene murmured, her silver eyes reading his soul like an open wound. His spirit is caught between worlds. He will either return or be taken forever.Aria closed her trembling hand around his. “He’s not going an

WHERE SHADOWS LEARN TO FEARAria woke screaming.The sound tore from her chest in a raw, broken cry that echoed endlessly, swallowed and returned distorted by the abyss. Her body jerked violently against the chains binding her wrists and ankles, pain shooting through her nerves as shadow-forged metal tightened in response. The restraints were alive. They sensed panic, fed on it, drawing strength from her fear.She forced herself to breathe.The darkness around her was not total it pulsed, shifted, breathed like a massive creature at rest. No ground lay beneath her feet, yet she stood, suspended by unseen force. The air tasted bitter, old, like decay layered over centuries of despair.“Easy,” a voice murmured, everywhere and nowhere at once. “You’ll exhaust yourself before we even begin.”The Shadow King emerged slowly from the gloom, his form coalescing from smoke and void. He was taller than any wolf, broader, crowned with curved horns that glimmered faintly violet. His eyes burned

Pain was not the first thing Aria felt when consciousness returned.It was absence.A hollow space stretched through her chest where warmth should have been, where Rowan’s presence usually burned like a living ember beneath her ribs. The bond was still there she could feel its outline, fragile and aching but it was thin, stretched, strained like a thread pulled too far.Her breath came uneven as she forced her eyes open.The abyss had changed again.The darkness no longer pressed in uniformly. It pulsed, subtle and alive, like a massive heart beating far beneath the ground. The stone beneath her was cracked now, veins of dim shadow-light crawling through it as though the realm itself had been wounded.She was still bound.Black chains wrapped her wrists and ankles, heavier than before, their symbols glowing faintly as if they were learning her power, adapting to it. Every slow movement made them tighten, not brutally, but with calculated restraint. They were no longer panicked by her

. THE CRUCIBLE DOES NOT FORGIVEThe door sealed behind Rowan with a finality that cut deeper than fear.There was no echo. No dramatic thunder. Just the unmistakable sound of something ancient deciding that retreat was no longer an option.Darkness swallowed him whole.Not the abyss he had tasted before not the suffocating hunger that clung to Aria’s prison but a denser, heavier void. This darkness pressed inward, not against his body, but against his spirit. It was weight without form, silence with intention. The air tasted metallic, sharp, like blood held too long on the tongue.Rowan took one step forward.The ground ignited.Pain exploded up his legs, searing straight into his spine. He dropped instantly, palms slamming into stone that burned without flame. His instincts screamed at him to shift, to let the wolf take over, to unleash the fire boiling beneath his skin and tear this place apart.He didn’t.He forced his breath steady, even as his muscles trembled violently. Fire cra

THE NIGHT THAT LEARNED TO BLEEDThe abyss did not like being challenged.Aria felt that truth settle into her bones as the realm shifted again, not violently this time, but with cold intention. The shadows thickened, pressing closer, no longer chaotic but disciplined like soldiers receiving a silent command. The cracked chains around her wrists tightened once more, not panicking, not feeding, but testing her limits with calculated pressure.She steadied herself.Fear was useless here. Rage was dangerous. Control real control was the only language this place respected.She inhaled slowly, ignoring the ache in her lungs, the burn in her arms. Moonlight gathered beneath her skin, not flaring outward, not rebelling, but settling into a calm, lethal stillness. The silver glow dimmed just enough to seem harmless.The abyss hesitated.Good.Far above, beneath a sky that had not yet felt the weight of this war, Rowan stood at the edge of the Crucible chamber, his body still radiating heat, sm