Chapter 3 – The Seer of Shadows

The temple was old, older than the packs, older than the bond marks etched by the Moon Goddess herself.

Stone columns rose like the bones of giants, half-swallowed by ivy and time. Symbols carved deep into the walls pulsed faintly, as if the stone remembered ancient magic. A shallow pool reflected the ceiling’s ruins, and above it, a single beam of light pierced through a broken dome, bathing the center of the temple in an eerie silver glow.

Aria stepped across the threshold, her breath catching. The temperature shifted immediately, colder, but not cruel. Watchful. Alive.

She wasn’t alone.

A figure emerged from the shadows beyond the pool, draped in robes the color of smoke. His hair was long and braided with bone beads, his face partly hidden beneath a cowl. But his eyes…

they gleamed like stars that had seen too many lifetimes.

“Welcome,” he said. His voice was deep and rough, like gravel underfoot. “You’ve come further than most.”

Aria didn’t flinch. “Are you the seer?”

“I am.” He circled the pool slowly. “But my name was once Theron, son of the Pale Hollow.”

“Why was it taken?”

He paused. “Because the truth I spoke cost me everything.”

They stood in silence for a moment, eyes locked. Hers, filled with bruised resolve. His, a mirror of something buried.

“I was told you could help me,” she said. “That I’m changing… becoming something I don’t understand.”

Theron nodded. “You were marked by betrayal. That alone reshapes the soul. But yours… runs deeper. The change began long before he left you.”

Aria’s spine stiffened. “So you know?”

“I see many things. Including what walks beside you now.”

He raised a hand, and suddenly the shadows behind her shifted. Aria spun around, blade drawn, but there was nothing. Until she looked closer.

A shimmer. A distortion in the air. A presence she’d felt but never seen.

“Wraith energy,” Theron said. “Bound to you the night your mate returned. It feeds on emotional collapse… but in rare souls, it binds instead of destroys.”

Aria lowered her blade, wariness turning to realization. “The violet-eyed woman.”

“She is not what she appears.”

Aria stepped forward. “Then what is she?”

Theron tilted his head. “A vessel. Of something ancient. Something sent to end you.”

The words rang in her bones like iron bells.

“But Kaelen said she’s his fated mate.”

Theron let out a low breath. “And yet, he still breathes. You think the Moon Goddess would pair her chosen Luna with a traitor bound to darkness?”

Aria staggered back a step. “Then their bond?”

“Twisted. Engineered. Your presence… threatened someone.”

Aria gritted her teeth. “Then why didn’t the Moon Goddess stop it?”

“Because gods do not interfere in tests they did not create.”

Theron led her deeper into the temple, past the pool, into a spiral stairwell carved into the earth itself. They descended in silence, torches lighting as they passed.

At the bottom, a chamber glowed faintly with silver flame. Inside, shelves lined with old scrolls and relics of forgotten packs. Sigils Aria didn’t recognize. Weapons too ornate to be made by wolves. And at the center, a large mirror, cracked through the middle, framed in black stone.

“This is where your true path begins,” Theron said. “Not as Luna. Not as Kaelen’s. But as the child of ash and bone.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” he said softly, “you are the heir of something long erased. And your enemies knew it… before you did.”

Aria stared at the mirror. Her reflection shimmered, and for a moment, it wasn’t her.

She saw herself dressed in black armor, standing atop a battlefield, wolves bowing at her feet. Her eyes glowed silver. Her hair was braided with rings of moonstone.

And behind her… a shadow rose. A crown of flame and claw.

She gasped. “What was that?”

Theron’s expression was unreadable. “One of many futures. All shaped by the choices you make now.”

“Then teach me,” Aria said. “Train me. I want to become her.”

Theron raised a brow. “Even if it means abandoning love? Mercy? The person you thought you were?”

Aria didn’t hesitate. “She died the night he brought that woman back.”

Theron nodded slowly. “Then we begin at first light.”

That night, Aria slept in a chamber carved into the mountain wall, empty save for a sleeping mat and a single rune carved into the ceiling: DELORA — the Old Tongue for unbroken.

But her dreams were not kind.

She saw Kaelen, lying beside Serenya, eyes closed, breathing in sync. She saw the pack feasting without her. Laughing without her. She saw her crest, her Luna mark, burned in a pyre while her voice screamed from the shadows.

But then… she saw herself. Rising. Glowing. Unbound.

And in the sky above her, a broken moon. At dawn, Theron placed a blade in her hands.

Not silver. Not steel. Bone.

“This was forged from the rib of a dead god,” he said. “It cannot break. But it will test you.”

Aria felt its weight, heavy, but right. And so began her true training.

For weeks, Theron tested her body and mind. He broke her down until she forgot what it felt like to be soft. He forced her to fight shadows that didn’t bleed. He made her run across frozen ridges blindfolded. Meditate while submerged in snowmelt pools. Read languages her tongue stumbled to pronounce.

He asked her questions without answers: “What is loyalty, if not chosen?”

“What burns brighter, vengeance or grief?”

“If fate failed you, what will you make of your freedom?”

And always, at the end of each trial, she returned to the mirror. Each time, her reflection changed.

Less Luna. More Queen. More flame. Less chain.

One night, after a particularly brutal fight against a phantom wolf that wore Kaelen’s face, she collapsed beside the temple’s main fire pit, arms bloody, lips trembling.

Theron sat beside her without a word.

“I loved him,” she whispered. “Even when I shouldn’t have.”

Theron didn’t speak.

“I don’t know what hurts more, that he replaced me… or that he didn’t fight for me.”

“Both are wounds,” Theron said quietly. “But one heals sharper than the other.”

She turned to him. “Which one?”

He met her gaze. “The one that taught you not to wait.”