CHAPTER SIX — THE EDGE OF THE MOON

ADRIAN POV

The world went white.

One second there was fire and screaming; the next, nothing. And then light… it was so bright it burned through my eyes. Then, silence.

When it faded, half the fortress was gone. Smoke rose in thin columns. The ground was littered with ash instead of bodies. Wolves that had been dead seconds ago dissolved into dust and vanished into the air.

No one spoke and no one moved.

Kai stood beside me, heaving heavily. “What the hell was that?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Every instinct in me was screaming, but not about the fortress.

The bond.

It pulsed once, it was faint but steady. Then again, this time weaker.

My heart clenched hard enough to hurt. “Lena.”

Kai turned toward me. “What?”

“She’s in trouble.”

He shook his head, still dazed. “Adrian, we’ve got wounded wolves, half the walls are gone—”

“She’s dying.”

He froze. “You can’t and you know that.”

“I can.”

The bond wasn’t quiet anymore. It was fading away, slipping, like water through my hands. The steady heartbeat I was growing used to since the summit was faltering, it was becoming thin and cold.

Kai caught my arm. “If you go now, you’re walking straight into Moonfang territory. They’ll kill you on sight.”

“I can’t just stand here.”

“Adrian—”

I met his eyes. “You know what a bond feels like. You’d do the same.”

He held my stare for a moment, his jaw tightened. Then he swore under his breath. “You’ve got one hour. After that, I’m sending a team.”

That was all I needed.

I shifted before he could change his mind, the ground blurring beneath my paws as I ran. The forest was still thick with mist, the leftover trace of whatever magic had saved us. It clung to my fur, light and sort of sticky. The smell of eion power hung in the air, but that will be dealt with later.

Every step closer to Moonfang territory made the bond weaker.

The closer I got, the worse it felt, like her heartbeat was being dragged down into the earth. 

She was dying!

The ruins of their outer wall came into view. Fire shone weakly from broken torches. The battlefield was a graveyard; no howls, no movement, just the soft drift of snow and smoke.

I shifted back, moving silently across the wreckage. Claw marks, scorch trails, and twisted bodies, that was what was left of rogues and wolves alike. The ground was blackened where that strange power had passed.

Kai’s voice brushed faintly through our mental link. “Adrian, report. Are you seeing survivors?”

“None,” I murmured. “Just death.”

“Then get out before—”

“Not without her.” I cut the link before he could argue.

I caught her scent near the eastern courtyard, it was faint, but still there. 

Pine and rain.

“Lena,” I muttered, following the trail.

It led through rubble and blood and silence. My boots crunched softly against the stone. The world was too still, like even the wind refused to blow.

Then I saw her.

She lay half-buried in snow and ash, she had gone pale, her hair tangled, and her sword was still clutched weakly in her hand. But her eyes were closed.

For a moment, I just stared. Then the bond fluttered once again, life draining out of it.

“Lena,” I said quietly, dropping to my knees beside her. 

No response. 

Her skin was ice-cold, colder than anything I’d ever felt. I brushed the hair from her face. 

“Damn it.”

I pressed two fingers to her neck. A faint pulse. It was weak and unsteady. 

It was poison.

My jaw tightened. I glanced around…no one close enough yet. I slipped an arm under her shoulders and lifted her easily. She weighed next to nothing.

“Hold on,” I muttered. “You don’t get to die yet.”

I started moving back the way I came, keeping low between the wreckage. The cold bit through my clothes, but I barely felt it.

By the time I reached the main courtyard, voices were rising in the distance….Moonfang soldiers… regrouping.

I ducked behind a collapsed wall, adjusting her weight in my arms. A strand of her hair brushed my face. Her skin felt different, not that I have ever touched it, but it was not just cold, but empty in a feeling way, as if the poison was stealing more than heat.

A shout echoed across the yard. “There! By the east wall!”

Two Moonfang warriors spotted us.

I moved before they could aim. I bolted across the littered ground, slipping through the smoke and snow, Lena pressed tight against me.

“Stop!” one of them shouted. “Put her down!”

Yeah, right.

An arrow sliced past my shoulder, embedding itself in a post. I turned, snarled, and kept running.

“Adrian, talk to me!” Kai’s voice came again, full of panic.

“She’s barely breathing.”

“Then hurry, damn it! The council’s already asking where you—”

I cut the link once more. I didn't have time for lectures.

The border wasn’t far anymore. I could already feel it, the pull of Ironclaw territory like a current under my feet.

“Adrian!” Kai’s voice echoed lightly through our mind link, it was distant but urgent. “You need to move. Now!”

“I’m already on it,” I muttered.

More voices behind me. The clang of pursuit.

I leapt over a fallen beam, the snow scattering in my wake. The air ahead shimmered faintly, the invisible boundary between packs. I stopped just before crossing.

The world seemed to narrow to the girl in my arms. Her head rested against my chest, her breath was shallow, with pale lips.

I looked down at her, then at the change of soil marking the edge of Moonfang’s land.

Kai’s voice buzzed again faintly. “Adrian, are you clear?”

I exhaled slowly. “Not yet.”

A soft wind brushed past us, carrying the scent of burnt flesh and ashes. I glanced once more at the broken fortress behind me, the fires still burning, and the faint glow of the cursed mist lingering above it all.

“I’ll probably regret this later,” I said under my breath.

Then I stepped forward, crossing the line.