LOGINI called Soren from the car before we even cleared the border. He answered quick, just two rings, and the relief hit me sharp and clean.“Aldric,” I said. “Is he still there?”“Yeah. He’s been helping Tomas keep the crowd under control. Why?”“Don’t let him leave,” I told him. “Stay close, but don’t make it look like you’re watching him.”A pause. “How close are we talking?”“If he moves, you know it. That close.”“Understood.” Then Soren hesitated, just a beat. “Kaelis. He doesn’t look like a man hiding something. He’s been hauling water over to the wolves at the boundary for the last hour.”“I know. Do it anyway.”I hung up, glanced at Rhydian in the seat next to me. He was thinking, same as I was, running the angles.“He might not know,” I said.“About his daughter,” Rhydian said quietly. “Yeah. He might honestly not know she’s even in the network’s records. He left before she was born, that’s what Malek said. Started over. Built a different setup. The network could’ve traced his b
"Another carrier," I said.Selene nodded. “Yeah.”“She woke up the same morning the bond finished for me.”“That’s what the record says.”I watched her face, searching for anything she might hold back. “The network’s system, this designation. They call her Carrier Two. Not One. Says a lot about who they found first.”She’d already thought through it. “You came up first in their records. Your bloodline surfaced before hers. But both got flagged and tracked around the same time. So the network knew about the possibility of two for a while.”“They got ready for it,” I said.“They got ready for everything,” Selene replied, voice flat. “That’s all the network ever did.”I let myself think about the old records, about that woman across the closed door, the bond that took three Alpha bloodlines and decades of remote, engineered circumstance. The ground where everything happened, planned for years. And somewhere out there, spun off by the same engineering, another wolf, another carrier waking
"Your mother," I said."Yes," Selene answered.I just stood there in the street, trying to process everything, another shift, like all the adjustments I’d been making with Voss, with Aldric, with everyone around me whose reasons ran deeper than I’d ever bothered to see.“How?” I asked. “How did the network erase a Bloodmoon carrier so completely her own daughter never found out?”“Same way they erased Voss’s grandfather,” Selene said. “Same way they hid how Zevran’s father actually died. They’ve been doing it for four centuries. They’re experts.” She glanced at the bag on my shoulder. “But not perfect. Every so often, something survives. A page they missed redacting. A line no one noticed. A slip.” She stopped for a moment. “Three days ago, after I dumped your files on this road, after I finally sat with what I’d kept for myself, I found one.”“What did it say?”“That a wolf named Mira Vane carried the mark two generations back,” Selene said. “She was suppressed before it woke. The ne
I read it again. Third time. The name stuck out: "Selene," I said, not trying to keep it quiet.Calla’s head snapped up. "The cousin," she said. "The one we found in the records. She’s the one who left them on the road.""Yeah," I said.Rhydian drifted close, reading over my shoulder. His jaw flexed. "Seven packs," he said. "Did Aldric say which ones?"Instead of texting, I called Aldric.He picked up right away. "The southern border packs. The ones that used to be Greycliff territory, before everything fell apart. You know, the most conservative of the lot. The ones who never wanted to change anything.""And Selene found them," I said."Either she found them or they found her," Aldric said. "My contact’s been following her, two days now, all through that region. She’s not hiding, Kaelis. She wants to be seen. She’s telling them she can bring back order against what she’s calling…." He stopped."Calling what?" I pushed."The Vane uprising."I stood in the clearing, golden light rising
My fingers flew across the screen. “I’m two minutes out. Hold on.”We hit the boundary and the car barely stopped before I jumped out, running for the treeline. Wolves were everywhere, hundreds, standing in clusters, all eyes turned to the golden light rising out of the confluence point. Some of them were crying, just like Tomas said they would. None of them moved.Rhydian and Malek were right behind me, and I felt the bond between us stretch tight. We all aimed for the same spot.One wolf met me at the edge. It just turned around and ran ahead, leading the way. I followed. The rest of the wolves didn’t block us, they didn’t even seem to notice. Their focus stayed fixed on the light.The clearing opened up ahead. The gold columns were massive, taller than anything Tomas described. They climbed out of the earth slow and steady from a dozen spots. Right in the middle, at the exact place I stood that morning, Soren sat curled up, knees tight to his chest, fists over his ears, silver ligh
I tried calling again. Same thing, just endless ringing, no voicemail, nothing. The call faded away and I was left staring at Soren’s name on my screen, our last message sitting there like maybe everything was still normal. But nothing in me felt normal right now.“He always picks up," Malek said. He was next to me now, but his usual calm was gone. “Soren always answers."“I know,” I said.Rhydian barely waited; he was already dialing. “Tomas,” he said as soon as someone picked up. “Confluence clearing. What’s going on?” He listened, face getting harder. “When?” He listened more, shot me a look that said nothing good. “Anyone hurt?” Another pause. “Don’t engage. Hold your ground. We're coming.”He ended the call.“Well?” I asked.Rhydian scrubbed a hand over his face. “The eleven packs got there forty minutes ago. Too fast. Means they started out before Calla passed the message from Sera, so Sera didn’t know until they were already on the move.” He stopped. “They're not attacking. Jus
“You knew,” I said. Voss looked at me, half surprise, half nothing, and didn’t answer. “The three packs,” I pressed. “You knew they’d go to Greycliff.” “I thought they might,” he said. “You thought they might,” I repeated, all the weariness in my voice. “While you sat on my root and told me you
I messaged Soren: Don’t touch him. I’m coming. Three dots appeared, then…… The first wolf already made that decision. He can’t leave anyway. I glanced at Rhydian. He was already heading for the vehicle. “How long?” I asked. “If we hurry, two hours,” he said. I turned to Sera. “Whatever Calla t
"Who was it?" Rhydian asked. I held the phone to my ear, trying to take in Sera’s words and decipher his question at the same time. Not easy, so I raised a hand. Rhydian went silent. "Can you describe her again? Specifically," I said to Sera. She gave the details: female, dark hair, confident. S
I stood on the path and said nothing. Five seconds. Maybe more. Malek shifted his weight, the way he always did when the ground changed under his feet. Rhydian’s face went still. Focused and unreadable. “Kaelis,” Rhydian said. “It’s Aldric,” I told them. Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Male







