CHAPTER 18

The howl fractured the air like a knife against glass.

Sharp. Alien. Wrong.

Every rogue froze.

Kael turned toward the treeline, his body taut with tension. Beside him, even hardened warriors reached for weapons instinctively, eyes flicking to the shadows that lay beyond the ring of tents.

“That’s not one of ours,” Kael said again, this time louder, his voice a command.

No one argued.

Rogan narrowed his eyes but stayed quiet. Even Ezek paled, his mouth flattening into a thin, uneasy line.

The vote was forgotten.

The air shifted.

From somewhere deeper in the woods, another sound followed, a rustle, too slow to be animal, too smooth to be a beast. But nothing emerged. Just silence, like the trees had swallowed the sound whole.

Aria stood among them, her skin crawling.

She didn’t know why she felt it first, but she did.

The pull. The heat. The stirring.

It was like something inside her had opened its eyes.

Later that day, the camp remained tense, buzzing with half-spoken rumors. But no enemy arrived. No threat declared itself. It was as though the forest had whispered a warning, then gone still again.

Still, the fire never stopped burning beneath Aria’s skin.

It began during training.

She stood in the ring with Thorne, sweat already clinging to her brow despite the cool morning. Nessa and a few younger rogues watched from the fence, cheering whenever Aria managed to hold her footing.

But today felt different.

Her heart beat louder.

Her body moved too quickly.

Thorne lunged, and Aria twisted under his arm in a blur, faster than she meant to be, nearly throwing him off balance.

The crowd gasped.

“Again,” Thorne said, narrowing his eyes.

They circled.

This time, Aria went on the offensive.

Three strikes. A duck. Then she swept his leg.

He hit the ground with a grunt, and for a split second, Aria’s eyes burned silver.

Not shimmered. Burned.

Everyone saw it.

Even Thorne paused mid-rise, his brows furrowing. “What the hell.”

But Aria backed away, hand to her forehead, dizzy. Her heart raced. Her skin burned beneath the surface like wildfire trapped under ice.

“Stop,” she gasped. “I… I need to…”

She stumbled.

Thorne caught her before she hit the dirt.

“Go get Maela,” someone shouted.

“No!” Aria croaked, grabbing Thorne’s sleeve. “Not Maela. Get… Corin.”

Corin found her seated under the shadow of the tree where they first met. She clutched her knees to her chest, breathing shallowly. Her vision swam. Her veins throbbed.

He crouched in front of her, voice low. “What happened?”

Aria didn’t answer immediately. She looked up.

“Did my eyes change?”

Corin hesitated.

“Yes.”

She exhaled. “Silver?”

He nodded. “Like the moon.”

She closed her eyes, swallowing the fear threatening to claw its way up her throat.

Corin sat beside her, silent for a while.

Then he said, “Have you heard of the Silverborn?”

Aria turned to him slowly. “No. But I think… I am one.”

Corin looked out toward the trees. “They’re stories. Legends. My mother used to whisper them when she thought I was asleep. About wolves born not just from bloodlines, but from prophecy. Seers, dreamwalkers. Wolves whose bodies hold too much magic, too much memory.”

She stared at him. “Too much?”

He nodded. “The forest doesn’t always love them back.”

A chill ran down her spine.

“I’ve heard of one,” Corin added. “A girl, long ago, whose power became too strong. The earth itself rejected her. She burned in her sleep.”

Aria’s throat tightened.

He saw it and placed a hand gently over hers.

“You won’t burn,” he said. “Not while I’m breathing.”

She tried to smile. “Then don’t stop breathing.”

But not everyone was so comforting.

Maela avoided her now… subtly at first, then more openly.

She no longer shared meals. When she passed Aria in the camp paths, her eyes dropped. Her shoulders tensed. Even Nessa noticed.

“She’s scared,” the girl whispered one night. “Of your eyes.”

Aria didn’t know what to say. How to fix something that even she didn’t understand.

And Kael?

He vanished.

She didn’t see him for three days.

No visits. No orders. Not even a glance across the fire circle.

She asked Thorne once, and he shrugged. “Scouting.”

But she didn’t believe that.

She felt him, still.

Like a storm hiding just over the ridge, waiting to break.

On the fourth night, Aria couldn’t sleep.

The pull returned, deep in her chest, in her blood. It dragged her from bed like a tide she couldn’t resist.

Barefoot and cloaked, she followed it.

Out past the sleeping tents.

Beyond the fence.

Into the woods.

The deeper she walked, the clearer it became. Not just the pull… but a voice. Not words, exactly, but impressions.

Come see. Come know. Come remember.

Branches scratched her arms. Moonlight filtered between the trees.

And then, just ahead she saw Kael.

Standing near a clearing.

Speaking.

But not to anyone she could see.

Her breath caught.

He wasn’t alone.

There was something else in the darkness.

A presence. Cloaked in shadows. Humanoid, but not wolf. Not entirely flesh either.

Its form shifted slightly, as though even the forest refused to see it fully.

Kael’s voice was low but sharp.

“You said she’d be ready.”

The figure didn’t respond in any way she could hear, but Kael clenched his fists.

“She’s unraveling.”

A pause.

Then: “No, I won’t touch her again until I know the truth.”

Aria took a step forward,

A twig cracked beneath her foot.

Kael’s head snapped toward the sound.

So did the figure’s.

Except the figure had no face.

Just a swirl of darkness where features should be.

Aria froze, but the thing was gone in an instant, dissolving into the night like smoke chased by wind.

Kael stared at her.

Eyes wide. Haunted.

He didn’t speak.

Neither did she.

But something between them shifted… fractured like the air before lightning strikes.

Aria took a trembling breath.

“You knew about me,” she whispered. “You’ve always known.”

Kael’s silence was the loudest answer of all.

“You knew about me,” Aria whispered, her voice carrying into the hush of the forest like smoke.

Kael didn’t answer. Not with words.

But the look in his eyes… shuttered, stormy, and old beyond his years was answer enough.

She took a step forward, her bare feet sinking into the cool mossy ground. “You’ve always known something. Even before the trials. Before Selene.”

His gaze flicked to the spot where the faceless shadow had disappeared, then back to her. “It’s not safe to talk here.”

She raised her chin. “I’m not the one hiding in the trees speaking to things with no face.”

His jaw clenched, but instead of arguing, he turned on his heel.

“Come with me.”

Aria hesitated, but her body moved anyway, pulled not by obedience, but by that same inner thread that kept leading her back to him. Even when she tried to hate him.

Even when she wanted to run.

They walked in silence. Not back toward camp, but deeper into the woods.

The moonlight thinned, swallowed by branches, until they reached a half-collapsed stone shelter, long devoured by ivy and moss.

Kael lit a torch from a hidden oil lantern. Its glow painted the broken walls gold.

“This used to be a watchtower,” he said without looking at her. “Before the elders abandoned this border. Too many disappearances.”

Her eyes flicked around. “Convenient place to keep secrets.”

He leaned against a broken column. “We don’t have time for subtlety anymore.”

She waited, arms crossed over her chest, tension wound tight beneath her skin.

Kael ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know everything. But I knew enough. I knew you were dangerous. That your blood didn’t belong to any known pack line. That your presence here would stir the forest.”

He met her eyes. “And I knew Selene feared you before she ever spoke your name.”

Aria swallowed hard. “She wanted me dead.”

“She wanted to stop what was coming.”

“And what is coming, Kael?” Her voice broke on his name. “What are we even fighting?”

He looked at her, really looked and there was no Alpha in his face just then. No leader. No hardened warrior.

Just a man who had been waiting too long to tell the truth.

“There’s a sickness,” he said finally. “In the land. In the magic. The Elders whisper of a rot born centuries ago, buried in blood and prophecy. The Silverborn were created to hold it back. But too many were killed. Or… corrupted.”

Her breath caught. “Corrupted?”

“They say when the forest chooses wrong, it swallows its chosen whole. Body, mind, soul.”

She took a step back. “Is that what you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But you’re changing. Your scent. Your strength. Your eyes. Even the way you move. The forest is reacting to you. And that thing I spoke to… it isn’t the only one watching.”

Aria felt her stomach twist. “What was that thing?”

Kael was silent for a long moment.

Then he said, “A spirit. Or what’s left of one. It doesn’t speak in words. It shows me things. Visions. Paths. Warnings.”

“Does it show you me?”

He nodded slowly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because if I’d told you everything from the beginning,” Kael said, stepping toward her, “you would’ve never followed me out of Silverpine. You would’ve never survived your first week here.”

“You marked me,” she said, voice trembling now. “Took me from everything I knew. Made me your fated mate without my consent. And now you say I might be a vessel for some ancient curse?”

He flinched. “It wasn’t meant to happen like that.”

“But it did.”

Silence.

The torch crackled between them.

Aria felt the weight of it all pressing against her ribs. “You don’t even like me.”

His head snapped up. “Don’t.”

She laughed bitterly. “Don’t what? Speak the truth?”

“I like you too much.”

Her heart stopped.

Kael looked away, jaw tight. “You’re fire, Aria. You shine through everything. I tried to keep my distance, tried to treat you like a piece on the board, but every time I see you with Nessa, or sparring with Thorne, or smiling like the world hasn’t broken you yet…”

He stepped closer.

“I want to stop pretending.”

The air changed.

She felt it between them, that hum that always hovered like a storm waiting to crash. It wasn’t just attraction. It was recognition. Something primal. Old.

But even still. “You kept secrets.”

“I kept you alive.”

“I don’t know if I can forgive that.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

His voice was hoarse now, thick with something more than regret.

She looked up at him, the torchlight dancing in his eyes.

“Then what do you want from me, Kael?”

He didn’t answer with words.

He leaned in… slow, cautious and brushed his forehead against hers.

Not a kiss.

Not yet.

Just contact.

Warmth.

Breath.

His voice was a whisper between them. “I want you to survive. Even if that means staying away from me.”

Her throat tightened. “What if I don’t want to stay away anymore?”

His hands curled at his sides, resisting the urge to touch.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do.”

Their lips nearly brushed.

Nearly.

But then,

The earth trembled.

Just once.

A ripple beneath their feet, like a heart skipping a beat.

Aria jerked back.

Kael turned toward the trees, instantly alert.

“What was that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t…”

A scream cut through the woods.

Far, but unmistakable.

Female. Panicked.

“Maela,” Aria gasped.

Kael was already running.

She followed.

They burst into camp minutes later, hearts pounding.

Maela stood in the center of the square, panting, clutching Nessa against her chest. Her cloak was torn, her arm bloodied.

“What happened?” Kael barked.

“They’re in the trees,” Maela said through gritted teeth. “Not wolves. Not rogues. Something else. I tried to follow Ezek after Aria saw him meeting that shadow. I was attacked.”

Aria froze. “Where is Ezek now?”

“Gone. Disappeared into the dark.”

Thorne and other guards began rallying. Rogan’s face was pale.

Kael turned to Aria. “It’s starting.”

“What is?”

“The rot,” he said, voice grim. “It’s waking up.”

And then, in the chaos, Aria felt it again deep in her chest.

A voice not her own, whispering through her blood like wildfire.

“The mark beneath the skin is awakening. And the girl will burn or become.”

She didn’t know which was worse.