SEALED IN ASH

CHAPTER 6

The passage slammed shut like stone had teeth.

I stumbled back, heat rushing into my face, and the amber veins in the rock went dark—dead, as if nothing had ever been there. Dax’s palm stayed pressed to the symbol, jaw tight, eyes blazing. He pushed once, twice, like sheer force could reopen it.

“Open,” he growled.

The stone didn’t even tremble.

Behind us, Kieran hit the ravine floor on one knee with a sound that punched the air out of me. Blood soaked the back of his shirt where the creature’s claws had raked him, dark and thick in the copper light. He tried to stand and failed, teeth bared, breath coming in broken pulls.

The thing stalking the ravine lifted its head, tasting the air.

Coal-bright eyes fixed on me.

Not Kieran.

Not Dax.

Me.

Its mouth opened and a sound rolled out that wasn’t a howl—it was hunger with a voice. The walls of the ravine vibrated. Dust sifted down like ash-snow.

My wolf slammed against my ribs, frantic. Run. Hide. Bite. Something.

The pendant burned against my palm. Not warm anymore—hot, like it had swallowed a coal.

“Dax,” I whispered. “It wants—”

“It wants the key,” he snapped, eyes flicking to my fist. “And it wants the blood that can turn it.”

Turn it.

The words made no sense, but fear didn’t care about sense. Fear cared about teeth.

The creature lunged.

Dax moved first—fast enough that the air cracked. He shoved me behind him and met the thing head-on, not shifting, not snarling, just stepping into its path like a wall. His hand shot out and slammed against its skull.

A shockwave of heat burst from his palm.

The creature skidded back a half step, claws carving gouges in the ravine floor. It shook its head, furious, and the ash on the ground whirled into a tight spiral around it—pulled, not by wind, but by will.

My will.

I hadn’t meant to do it. I hadn’t even breathed. But the ash obeyed, lifting like a living thing and wrapping the creature’s legs, slowing it, binding it.

Dax glanced over his shoulder, sharp. “Stop feeding it.”

“I’m not!” I choked.

“Yes, you are,” he said, voice low and urgent. “Your fear is a command. Your panic is a beacon.”

Kieran coughed, a wet sound. “Aria…”

His voice hit my chest like a bruise. I turned my head and the bond-pain spiked—hot, vicious—as if the severed thread between us was still attached and someone was yanking it.

Kieran’s eyes were wild. Not with possession now. With something worse.

Regret.

“I didn’t know,” he rasped. “I swear to the Moon, I didn’t know.”

The creature roared again and the ash binding its legs snapped like rotten rope. It surged forward, faster this time, smarter—head low, shoulders rolling, eyes locked on my fist.

Dax grabbed my wrist, hard. “Choose.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Choose what you are,” he said, pulling me toward the ravine wall. “A girl who freezes, or the thing the Moon just woke up.”

“I don’t know how to be a thing,” I hissed, stumbling.

“You do,” he said. “It’s already listening.”

The pendant pulsed in my hand, a heavy beat, and I felt it—something under my skin that wasn’t muscle or bone. A presence. Vast. Patient. Like a storm waiting for a door.

The creature leapt.

Dax shoved me sideways and it missed my throat by inches, snapping at empty air. Its claws raked stone and sparks flew. The sound scraped my nerves raw.

Kieran lurched, trying to get between it and me, and pain carved through him. He gritted his teeth, shaking, but still he rose—one step, then another—like the Alpha in him refused to let anyone else die for his mistake.

“Aria, run,” he barked, voice breaking.

The command hit my wolf.

My feet tried to obey.

My chest exploded with pain.

“No!” I screamed, and the word ripped out of me like a blade.

The ash surged.

Not drifting. Not swirling. Surging like a wave.

It slammed into the creature, driving it back, pinning it against the ravine wall with a force that shook the rock. The creature thrashed, snarling, teeth snapping at air, but the ash held—thick, black, boiling.

I stared at my hands, horrified.

I wasn’t pushing.

I was… deciding.

Dax’s eyes widened the slightest amount. “Aria.”

My name sounded different in his mouth. Not warning. Not command.

Recognition.

The pendant flared so bright it painted my fingers copper-gold.

And in that light, I saw it.

A mark blooming on my wrist beneath the cloth Dax tied there: a crescent split by a line, the same symbol on the gate-stone, burning through fabric like ink made of fire.

Kieran saw it too.

His face went slack. “No,” he breathed. “It can’t be—”

The creature’s eyes went glassy, then sharp again, and it lowered its head.

Kneeled.

Just for a heartbeat—submitting to something it hated.

The ash loosened.

Dax grabbed my chin and forced me to meet his gaze. “Don’t let it go.”

“I don’t know how,” I whispered, shaking.

“You tell it what it is,” he said. “You tell it who it serves.”

My throat went dry. My wolf trembled, half terrified, half feral with power.

The creature growled, gathering itself.

Kieran staggered closer, blood dripping, voice raw. “Aria… if you do that, there’s no going back.”

Dax’s voice cut in, cold and sure. “There’s already no going back.”

The creature surged upward, breaking the ash like chains.

And my pendant cracked—one sharp sound like a bone snapping—sending a pulse through the ravine that knocked us all off balance.

In the sudden dark, something inside me answered back.

Not fear.

A voice.

“Say the word,” it whispered inside my bones, ancient and calm.

And the creature lunged straight for my throat.