ログインWe didn't have 24 hours.We had 6.The Maw didn't wait. The sky over Blackridge went grey again at noon. Not beam-grey. Hungry-grey. Like the clouds were teeth.Hope started bleeding from her white mark. Just a little. Elara screamed and grabbed her wrist — her own white mark started bleeding too."They're linked," Nia shouted, pressing her staff to both girls. White light, but it bounced off. "Altar 3 is pulling them! It's calling the pure Whites to be eaten!"Caelum shifted to white wolf, roaring at the sky. "He is eating the moonlight! If he eats a White, he becomes what Lira was before she became sky!"Kai looked at me. Gold eyes, calm, Alpha calm."Plan?" he said."Same as 64," I said. My grey mark, which had been swirling all morning, finally went still again. Because I knew. "We don't go to Altar 3. We make Altar 3 come to us.""What?" Vex, from the truck, holding Kovac's chains."The Maw wants Whites. He wants moonlight. So we give him moonlight he can't eat. We give him Grey.
We didn't burn Altar 2.We buried it.Fifty wolves, pushing snow and ice with their noses, their paws, until the pit was just a hill again. Caelum stood in his white wolf form on top of it, his new white mark blazing, and howled. Not a pack howl. A mourning howl. For all the Number 12s before Hope that didn't make it.Hope didn't let go of my hand the whole time. 11 years old, white hair like Elara's, but her white mark was on her wrist, not her neck. Small. Like a bracelet. She kept touching it, like she couldn't believe it was clean again."Is it going to crack again?" she whispered to me as we walked back to Vex's truck. Vex had tied Kovac up with his own silver chains and thrown him in the truck bed like a sack of potatoes. "My mark?""No," I said, and squeezed her hand. My grey mark was quiet, tired, but warm where she held me. "Not while I'm here. White stays white when pack protects it. That's the rule now. I made it a rule."Kai walked on her other side, huge black wolf, letti
We ran for 4 hours.Fifty wolves, two marked ones on four legs — me grey, Caelum white — and one human in a truck trying to keep up because Vex refused to shift."My knees! My beautiful knees!" he kept shouting over the CB radio Maya taped to his dashboard.North. Always north. The air got colder, the trees thinner, until there were no trees at all. Just snow, ice, and rock that looked like teeth.The map said Altar 2 was in the cave where Viktor found Caelum. Nia had been there 20 years ago. She said it was a burial cave. White walls, white floor, white so pure it hurt to look at.Now it glowed grey on the horizon. Like our old crater, but bigger."Kovac beat us to activating it," Caelum said in my head. His white wolf was huge, scarred, but fast. White fur turning grey at the tips from running so hard. "I can feel it. Altar 2 is awake. It's calling Whites.""Elara?" I gasped, still clinging to Kai's black fur. Kai was breathing hard but steady under me. Alpha stamina."Elara is safe
"The Moon didn't go dark," Nia whispered, staring at her blazing staff. "It multiplied."For one second, it was beautiful. The sky clear, full moon white, Pip not coughing, Caelum — no longer The First, just Caelum — standing with a new white mark on his chest like a kid who just got chosen.Then Vex shouted again from the yard: "LILA! THAT'S NOT THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO SEE!"We ran.PackHouse yard was full of wolves now. All 50 of Kai's pack, back conscious, circling, snarling at the tree line. Not at Caelum. At something beyond him.Maya pushed through, dragging a backpack. Viktor's backpack. The black one he always left in the lab. The one we thought burned when Lila exploded him in Chapter 55."I found it," she panted. "In the crater. Where the Dark Altar was. It didn't burn. It's... humming."She dropped it. It thudded heavy.Kai nudged it with his foot, still half-shifted, claws out. "Don't open it.""We have to," I said. My new stable grey mark was quiet, but it was cold. Wa
"Found you," Lira whispered from the sky, hopeful.And the whole kitchen held its breath.I was still on my knees, holding the bone — her heart — in one hand, Caelum's cold hand in my other. My grey mark was flaring so bright the grey lantern Sparrow brought down was nothing. White and black swirling, clashing, trying to become grey and staying."Lila, don't listen to it," Kai growled low, his Alpha voice shaking. He was still half-shifted, claws out, his big body over me and Elara and all the little ones. "That's not the Moon. That's the thing in the altar. It's tricking you.""No," Elara whispered. Her white mark with the black ring was crying light down her cheeks, but she wasn't scared anymore. She was smiling, tiny. "It's not tricking. It's her. Lira. She's been alone so long."Caelum — The First — coughed. Blood, grey, on his lips. He tried to push himself up. Kai didn't stop him this time."She's not alone," Caelum said hoarsely, looking up at the ceiling like he could see thro
"You don't just unmake Viktor," Nia said. "You unmake the Moon itself."The room went dead silent.Even the little ones stopped breathing.Kai was still holding me and Elara and Sparrow and Pip all at once, his arms like a cage around us, his gold eyes locked on the sleeping man on the cellar steps. The man — The First — was breathing so slowly I thought he'd stopped three times."What do you mean unmake the Moon?" Maya asked. She pushed forward, Luna right behind her. Maya hadn't slept since the crater. Her eyes were red. "You mean the actual moon? In the sky?"Nia didn't look away from the bone in my hand. It was warm. Too warm. And it was still humming that sad lullaby, but only Elara and I could hear it. Elara had her hands over her ears now."I mean the magic," Nia said quietly. "All of it. White, black, grey. Packs. Marks. Wolves who shift. Girls who heal. Boys who run fast. The songs we sing to call the pack. All of it came from her." She pointed to the bone. "The First White.







