Chapter 10: The Ghost of the Southern Wastes

​The morning after the Black Moon felt like a collective hangover for the entire Silver Moon Pack.

​The eclipse had been averted, but the spiritual toll was heavy. I spent the early hours in the infirmary, my hands glowing a faint, steady silver as I stabilized warriors whose internal systems had been jolted by the sudden snap of the magical vacuum.

​By noon, the palace was transformed. The "Festival of Light" had begun—a tradition to celebrate the moon’s return. The halls were draped in white silk, and the scent of roasting venison and wildflowers fought to mask the lingering smell of ozone and ash.

​I stood on the balcony of the Grand Hall, watching the pack members below. For the first time, they weren't looking at me with suspicion. They were looking up with a reverence that felt like a heavy cloak.

​"You look like you're planning an escape again," a deep voice rumbled behind me.

​I didn't need to turn to know it was Liam. He was dressed in a formal charcoal tunic, his Alpha crest polished and gleaming. He looked every bit the King, but I could see the slight tremor in his fingers—a lingering effect of the power we had channeled together.

​"I’m just not used to the quiet," I said, leaning my elbows on the stone railing. "In the Neutral Zone, silence meant something was about to kill you. Here, it feels... fragile."

​Liam stepped beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. "It is fragile. But we’re the ones holding it together now."

​He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet-lined box. Inside was a ring—not the one he had given me years ago, but a new one. It was a band of white gold set with a single, raw piece of Moonstone that pulsed with a soft, inner light.

​"Elena, I know a festival and a ring don't erase five years of exile," he said, his voice dropping to a vulnerable register I rarely heard. "But I want to re-mark you. Not as a King claiming a subject, but as a man asking his mate to come home. Truly home."

​My heart hammered against my ribs. My wolf was practically pacing in my mind, desperate to accept, to let the bond snap back into place with the finality of a lock. But before I could speak, a cold shiver raced down my spine—the kind of chill that only came when Lyra was near.

​"Mommy! Daddy!"

​Lyra burst onto the balcony, her face pale, her breathing shallow. Aries was right behind her, his eyes darting around as if he were looking for a physical enemy.

​"Lyra, what is it?" I knelt, catching her by the shoulders. "Is it the Black Moon again? Isabella is gone, honey. She can't hurt you."

​"It's not her," Lyra whispered, her eyes beginning to glaze with that terrifying iridescent white. "The woman was just the key. She opened the door, but she didn't see what was standing on the other side."

​Liam crouched beside us, his face hardening. "What did you see, Lyra?"

​"The Great Devourer," she gasped, her small hands clutching the front of Liam’s tunic. "He’s walking through the Southern Wastes. He has a crown made of bone and an army that doesn't breathe. He says... he says he’s coming to reclaim his birthright."

​Liam froze. His grip on Lyra’s arms tightened just a fraction too much, and his scent—usually so steady—spiked with a sharp, bitter note of terror.

​"An army that doesn't breathe?" Liam whispered. "And the crown... Lyra, did he have a scar? A jagged line across his throat?"

​Lyra nodded slowly. "He calls himself the Forgotten King."

​Liam stood up abruptly, his face turning a ghostly shade of gray. He turned and looked toward the Southern border, his eyes narrowing as if he could see through the mountain range.

​"Liam?" I stood, placing a hand on his arm. "Who is she talking about? Who has a scar like that?"

​Liam didn't answer for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a grave.

​"My brother," he said. "Caleb."

​The Secret of the Second Son

​The air in the war room was suffocating.

​Maps were spread across the table, weighted down by daggers and stone markers. Beta Marcus stood at the far end, his face as grim as Liam’s.

​"Caleb is dead, Liam," Marcus said, his voice firm but laced with an undercurrent of doubt. "I saw the cliff. I saw the fall. No wolf survives a three-hundred-foot drop into the Jagged River, especially not with a throat wound like the one you gave him."

​"I thought I saw him die, too," Liam said, his fist slamming into the table. "But Lyra saw the scar. The scar I gave him when he tried to stage the coup ten years ago. If Isabella’s ritual weakened the veil between the worlds, Caleb might not have come back as a living wolf. He might have come back as something else."

​I looked between them, my mind racing. "You never told me you had a brother, Liam. You told me you were an only child."

​Liam looked at me, his eyes full of a deep, old pain. "Because to the Silver Moon, Caleb never existed after the coup. He was the 'Dark Alpha.' He believed the pack should grow through conquest and slaughter. He tried to kill our father. When I challenged him for the throne, I thought I ended the rot."

​"And the Southern Wastes?" I asked. "What’s out there?"

​"Nothing but sand, salt, and the spirits of the exiles who couldn't survive the Neutral Zone," Marcus explained. "If he’s been out there, he’s been building a 'Rogue Legion.' Wolves who have been cast out of their packs, men with nothing to lose."

​"And if Lyra says they don't breathe," I added, my medical instincts kicking in, "it means he’s using the very necromancy Isabella was playing with. He’s not leading an army; he’s leading a plague."

​A sudden horn blast echoed through the palace—a long, low note that signaled a breach at the outer perimeter.

​"They're here," Liam growled.

​The Arrival of the Shadow

​We didn't wait for them at the gates. We met them at the border of the Whispering Woods.

​The army that emerged from the Southern mists wasn't like any pack I had ever seen. There were no banners, no armor. Just hundreds of wolves with matted, gray fur and eyes that glowed with a sickly, pale yellow light. They moved in a chilling, perfect silence. No growls. No snapping of twigs.

​In the center of the line, a man sat on a skeletal horse. He was gaunt, his skin pulled tight over his cheekbones, and a thick, ropy scar ran from his ear to his collarbone. He wore a circlet of blackened bone on his head.

​Liam stepped forward, his Alpha aura flaring to its full, blinding height. "Caleb."

​The man on the horse tilted his head. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face, revealing teeth that had been filed into points.

​"Hello, little brother," Caleb said. His voice was a dry rasp, like wind over a desert. "I see you've kept my seat warm. And you've even found a pretty little thing to sit beside you."

​His yellow eyes locked on me, and I felt a wave of cold nausea. This wasn't a wolf. This was a shell inhabited by something ancient and hungry.

​"The Silver Moon is mine by right of the Goddess, Caleb," Liam roared. "You were exiled for treason. Turn back now, or I will finish what I started ten years ago."

​Caleb laughed, a sound that made the birds flee the trees. "The Goddess? The Goddess is a story for pups, Liam. Out in the Wastes, there is only the Devourer. And he is very, very hungry."

​Caleb raised a hand, and the gray wolves behind him began to change. Their bodies twisted and cracked, their limbs elongating into grotesque, spider-like shapes. They weren't shifting into wolves; they were shifting into monsters.

​"Aries! Lyra!" I whispered, pulling the children behind me. I could feel the silver light in my blood beginning to pulse, reacting to the foulness of the army before us.

​"They smell like the dark, Mommy," Aries whispered, his claws sliding out.

​"I know, baby. Stay behind me."

​Caleb leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the twins. "Ah... the heirs. The little miracles Isabella was so worried about. They have quite a bit of light in them, don't they? It’s been so long since I’ve tasted something so... pure."

​Liam shifted in a blur of black fur, his massive form standing between Caleb and our family. The Silver Moon warriors behind us drew their swords and shifted, a wall of fur and steel ready to defend their home.

​"You won't touch them," Liam’s voice echoed in the pack link, a roar of pure, lethal protection.

​"I don't need to touch them today," Caleb said, his horse beginning to back into the mist. "I just wanted to see what I’m going to eat first. The Black Moon opened the door, Liam. The veil is thin. And my master is tired of waiting."

​Caleb waved a hand, and the gray army began to melt back into the fog.

​"Enjoy your festival, brother," Caleb’s voice echoed from the thinning mist. "The light is so much brighter just before it goes out."

​The Burden of the Crown

​The border was quiet again, but the peace was gone.

​We returned to the palace in a heavy silence. The "Festival of Light" continued, but for us, the sun felt cold.

​I sat in the nursery, watching Aries and Lyra sleep. They were exhausted, their small bodies processing the trauma of the encounter. Liam stood in the doorway, his shadows long and jagged on the floor.

​"He's not human anymore, Liam," I said, not looking up. "Whatever Caleb found in the Wastes, it stripped him of his soul. You can't fight him like a regular Alpha."

​"I know," Liam said. He walked over and sat on the edge of the chair beside me. He looked at the ring box he was still holding. "I wanted today to be perfect. I wanted to give you the life you deserved."

​I looked at him, and for the first time, I saw the true weight of the crown. It wasn't just power; it was a target.

​I reached out and took the box from his hand. I opened it, the Moonstone glowing softly in the dim light. I took the ring and slid it onto my finger.

​It fit perfectly.

​"The life I deserve is a life with my family," I said, meeting his emerald eyes. "And if that means we have to fight a ghost from the Wastes to keep it, then that's what we do."

​Liam leaned in, his forehead resting against mine. "I don't deserve you, Elena."

​"No, you don't," I whispered, a small, tired smile tugging at my lips. "But you've got me anyway."

​We sat there in the dark, a King and Queen prepared for a war they didn't ask for.

​But as I looked at the ring on my finger, I noticed something. The Moonstone, which should have been white, was slowly turning a deep, bruised violet.

​The Black Moon wasn't over. It was just getting started.

​