Librairie
Rechercher
Accueil / Werewolf / MOON OF ASHES / CHAPTER 51

Share

CHAPTER 51

Auteur: Nathaniel Korbi
last update Dernière mise à jour: 2025-09-28 07:55:36

The moment Ava’s skin met the stone, the cold leapt up her arm like a living thing. It wasn’t the bite of winter but something deeper, older — a chill that carried memory. She gasped and tried to pull back, but the carvings pulsed under her palm, grooves filling with pale light as if liquid moonfire were rising from beneath the earth.

Silas lunged forward. “Ava—”

“I can’t—” Her voice caught. Her fingers were locked, muscles trembling. Images poured into her mind, too fast to sort: a forest drenched in blood, wolves circling a burning tree, a silver crown shattered and buried. Through it all, a single note, long and low, vibrated her bones.

The wolves dropped to their bellies, ears flat. Mara stepped back, eyes wide. “It’s answering her.”

Caleb swore softly, knuckles whitening on his knife. “Or it’s eating her alive.”

A fissure cracked down the center of the stone, releasing a hiss of cold mist. Ava’s hair lifted as if a wind were rising from underground. The bond surged between her an
Continuez à lire ce livre gratuitement
Scanner le code pour télécharger l'application
Chapitre verrouillé
Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Latest chapter

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 58

    The fire had burned low, its flames shrinking to glowing embers that pulsed like a heartbeat in the dark. The clearing smelled of smoke, blood, and the cold dampness of the retreating mist. No one spoke at first. They were all listening—to the silence, to the echo of the Exile’s scream still lingering in their bones.Ava sat with the dagger across her knees, the runes dim now but warm to the touch, as if it remembered what had just happened. She could feel every wolf through the bond, dozens of hearts beating, breaths shallow but steady. Yet their threads felt different—stretched taut, brittle, as though the Exile’s touch had frayed something fundamental.Her chest hurt where the pain of those torn threads still lingered.Mara broke the silence. Her voice was rough, low, like she had swallowed gravel. “It wasn’t fighting to kill. It was fighting to take.”Ava looked up, startled. “Take what?”“The bond itself.” Mara’s eyes were rimmed red from smoke and fear, but they were steady. “It

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 57

    The word caught in Ava’s throat, suspended between terror and certainty. Her hand shook on the dagger, the runes spilling light across her arm like veins of fire. Every instinct screamed to thrust the blade into the soil, to end the weight pressing on her chest. But the bond whispered louder—of threads, of roots, of the child-wolf at her side.Her voice steadied. “I choose to bind.”The word rang through the clearing as if the valley itself had heard. The First Wolf’s eyes narrowed, ancient and unreadable, and then it lowered its head to the earth in assent.The dagger erupted with light. A shockwave rippled outward, scattering the mist and making the trees shudder as though struck by a storm. Ava gasped as the power surged through her, threads lashing out into every wolf in the circle, every bond in reach. She was no longer standing in the clearing—she was running with them, her lungs burning, her paws tearing the soil, her throat lifting in a howl that wasn’t hers alone.The connect

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 56

    The wind off the valley rose in a long, low sigh, as if the land itself were breathing. Mist shifted and parted, revealing rolling forest dotted with clearings that glimmered like pale coins under the moon. The points of light Ava had seen before weren’t stars at all but eyes—hundreds of them—moving in slow, deliberate arcs.Caleb crouched, scanning the valley. “That’s a whole host,” he murmured. “They’re not charging. They’re… waiting.”Silas rested a hand on the rock to steady himself. The dagger at his side throbbed with a measured rhythm, each pulse syncing with the lights below. “They can feel us. Not just me. All of us.”Mara swallowed hard. “We fought our way out of the keep for this? To climb right into a nest?”Ava kept her eyes on the valley, trying to read the shapes in the mist. The bond she had with the wolves brushed against her senses—thin threads tugging at the edge of her mind. These weren’t the broken, cursed creatures they’d been fighting. Their presence was older,

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 55

    The stairway crumbled beneath their boots, steps worn slick by centuries of damp. Roots dangled from the ceiling like ropes; the air smelled of earth and iron. Silas went first, blade drawn, his silhouette a jagged shadow against the faint light from above. Ava followed, clutching the dagger, the child-wolf tucked against her hip. Caleb and Mara brought up the rear, the glow from Caleb’s staff casting green halos on the walls.The deeper they went, the louder the dripping water became. It echoed like slow heartbeats in the dark. The dagger was heavy now, heavier than a weapon should be. Ava could feel it vibrating faintly, as if it were aware of the tunnels.“Keep to the left,” Silas murmured. “Old catacomb maps show the river passage that way.”Caleb’s staff illuminated rows of stone niches. Bones lay within, some wrapped in rotted shrouds, others bare. The walls themselves were carved with symbols Ava recognised from the dagger’s hilt. They writhed faintly in the staff’s light.Mara

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 54

    By the time the trees thinned, dusk had already bled into the sky. The last light of the sun slid through the canopy like molten copper, streaking the undergrowth and setting every spiderweb ablaze. The ruined chapel rose from the hollow ahead like the ribs of some long-dead beast, its stone walls canted and broken, its roof mostly gone. Only the bell tower still stood, cracked but defiant, leaning as though braced against the wind.Ava stopped at the tree line, heart hammering. She remembered this place from childhood — a picnic with her mother in the meadow nearby, a game of hide-and-seek among these very stones. Back then the chapel had been merely abandoned, a ghost of an old faith. Now it felt different. Not empty. Waiting.The child-wolf padded a few steps forward and sat down, tail curled around its paws. Its ears flattened; a low whine escaped its throat. The sound echoed strangely under the arching tower, like a note struck on a cracked bell.Silas came up beside Ava, hand on

  • MOON OF ASHES   CHAPTER 53

    Shadows poured down the stairwell like water spilling from a tipped basin. They coalesced at the base, stretching and folding until a shape began to emerge — tall, spare, and crowned with antlers of living root. Eyes opened within the darkness, not glowing but deep as wells, reflecting the faint silver light of the cavern.Ava felt her stomach knot. This wasn’t like the apparition at the glade. This thing was solid, heavy with intent. The child-wolf trembled in her arms but didn’t try to flee.Silas stepped forward, blade drawn but lowered. “Who are you?”The voice answered from everywhere at once, carrying the smell of pine and cold stone. “I am the Keeper of the Heart. I was set here when the first oath was broken. I guard what remains.”Caleb muttered, “Great. A prison warden.”The Keeper’s head turned slightly, its antlers brushing the roots overhead without disturbing them. “You have undone chains bound by blood and vow. Do you understand what you have released?”Ava forced herse

Plus de chapitres

Vous vous intéresseriez aussi à

Découvrez et lisez de bons romans gratuitement
Accédez gratuitement à un grand nombre de bons romans sur GoodNovel. Téléchargez les livres que vous aimez et lisez où et quand vous voulez.
Lisez des livres gratuitement sur l'APP
Scanner le code pour lire sur l'application
DMCA.com Protection Status