Chapter 8: The Echo of the Abyss

The peace was a beautiful lie, or perhaps just a temporary lull in the storm. While the unified territory flourished, a new shadow was stretching across the borders—one that didn't belong to the wolves.

I was standing in the Great Hall, inspecting a map of the surrounding territories, when a sudden, jarring cold pierced through my chest. It wasn't the frost of my own power; it was a void, a hungry, hollow sensation that made the jackfruit on the table turn to gray mush within seconds.

"Elora?" Thane was at my side instantly, his hand steadying my arm. His wolf was growling low in his throat, a sound of pure instinctual warning. "What is it?"

"Something... is eating the light," I whispered, my eyes fixed on the southern border of the map.

The doors to the hall burst open. Jace didn't drop from the rafters this time; he ran in, his face pale and his breathing ragged. He was covered in a strange, shimmering black dust that looked like soot but moved like insects.

"The southern watchtower," Jace gasped, collapsing to one knee. "It’s gone. Not destroyed, Elora. It’s just... gone. There’s nothing left but a hole in the world."

Kaelen rushed forward, his hands already glowing with a soft green healing light. He tried to brush the black dust off Jace’s shoulder, but as his fingers touched it, he hissed in pain. The dust wasn't just dirt; it was a localized "Deprivation" even more absolute than my own.

"Don't touch it!" I commanded, stepping forward. I raised my hand, calling upon the Primordial White Wolf. A burst of pure, blinding silver light radiated from my palm, vaporizing the black soot on Jace’s skin. He let out a sigh of relief as the color returned to his face.

"What did you see, Jace?" I asked, my voice as sharp as a winter frost.

"They weren't wolves," Jace said, his eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in him. "They were shadows that walked like men. They didn't use blades. They just touched the stone, and the stone turned to smoke. They were looking for something. They were calling out a name."

"My name?" I asked.

"No," Jace swallowed hard. "They were calling for 'The Abyss Throne.' They said the Queen was sitting in a stolen chair."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Thane’s grip on his obsidian blade tightened so hard his knuckles cracked. Kaelen looked at the blackened spot on the floor where the dust had fallen, his mind clearly racing through every ancient text he had ever memorized.

"The Abyss," Kaelen murmured. "Elora, when you broke the seal on your bloodline, you didn't just wake up the White Wolf. You sent a flare into the dark. There are entities that existed before the first Alpha was ever born—beings that feed on the essence of creation."

"They want the Ravine," I realized, looking at the glowing heart of my mountain. "They don't want the land or the people. They want the source of the Deprivation."

"Then we give them a war," Thane growled, his shadow-form beginning to bleed from his skin, manifesting as a massive, spectral wolf that mirrored his every move.

"No," I said, a new kind of power coiling in my gut. "If they can turn stone to smoke, a traditional war will only feed them. We need to go to the source. If they are shadows, then I am the sun that will burn them out of existence."

I walked to the balcony and looked toward the south. The horizon was no longer blue; a thin, oily line of darkness was rising, swallowing the stars. I could hear the faint, distant screams of the earth itself as it was unmade.

I felt the three bonds of my Mates surge—Thane’s fierce protective fire, Kaelen’s calculating brilliance, and Jace’s silent, lethal speed. We were no longer just a pack of outcasts; we were the only thing standing between the world and the void.

"Pack your things," I told them, my eyes turning a brilliant, terrifying white that cast no shadow. "We aren't defending the Silver Crest anymore. We are going into the Abyss."

I turned back to the table, picking up a single cashew nut, the symbol of the peace I had worked so hard to build. I crushed it in my hand, letting the pieces fall.

"They think I am sitting on a stolen throne," I whispered. "I think it’s time I showed them who the real thief is."

As we prepared to leave, I saw a lone figure watching us from the courtyard below. It was Fenris. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine. For the first time, there was no hate in his gaze, only a profound, echoing fear. Even he knew that the monsters coming out of the dark were far worse than a forgotten girl seeking revenge.

I didn't acknowledge him. I turned my back on the past and walked into the dark, my three Mates flanking me like the moons of a new, colder world.