CHAPTER FOUR

~ Ronan ~

The red marks on the map were spreading again.

I stood over the table, staring at them, while the others waited. No one spoke. They knew better. The chamber was cold enough that their breath showed in the torchlight, but I barely noticed. I’d stopped feeling the cold years ago.

Dante dropped another report on the wood. “Three more. Northern ridge and the old river settlements. Same as the others.”

I picked it up. Unprovoked attacks. Wolves shifting halfway and not coming back. Some of them turning on their own pack members under weak moonlight. Eleven dead so far. Probably more that no one was reporting yet.

“They’re still calling them territorial fights,” Dante said.

“They’re wrong.”

I traced the newest marks with my finger. No pattern that made sense on the surface. Different packs. Different regions. The only thing connecting them was the moon. Every time its light thinned, something slipped.

“What about the lunar sites?” I asked.

“Two scouts came back. The third one’s late. Places are falling apart. Whatever wards used to be there are mostly gone. No one’s kept them up in a long time.”

Of course they hadn’t. People loved forgetting anything that made them uncomfortable.

I looked around the table at the Nightguard. These weren’t blood-bound wolves following some inherited title. They’d chosen this. They’d stayed because I didn’t lie to them about how bad things were getting.

“We’re not taking this to the council,” I said. “They’ll bury it the same way they’ve buried everything else connected to the old covenant. We handle it ourselves.”

No one argued. A few nodded. That was enough.

I dismissed them with a look. Chairs scraped. Boots moved. In under a minute, the room was empty except for Dante.

He waited until the door shut. “You’re sure it’s the barrier.”

“I’m sure the moon is dying.” I pulled the key from around my neck and unlocked the case on the far wall. “And I’m sure my ancestors didn’t build something that powerful just so later generations could pretend it never existed.”

The parchment inside was older than most of the packs in Veyrhold. Parts of it had been burned. Other sections scraped away on purpose. Someone had worked hard to make sure the full truth didn’t survive.

I’d spent years trying to fill in the gaps.

Dante watched me unroll it. “Anything new?”

“Not yet.”

A knock cut him off. One of the younger messengers stepped in, dropped to one knee, and held out a sealed report.

“Eastern territories. Marked priority.”

I took it, broke the seal, and read.

Most of it was the usual noise—border disputes, trade complaints, minor challenges. Near the bottom, a short note stopped me.

Blackthorn Pack. Mate Ceremony. The woman, Anya Vale, publicly rejected Alpha Garrick Thorne. He’s restricted her movement.

Vale.

I read the name again.

It wasn’t common. I’d seen it before, buried in the damaged sections of the older records. It showed up near references to the bloodlines that used to maintain the lunar sanctuaries. Most of those lines were supposed to be gone.

I handed the report to Dante. “Look into the Vale family connected to Blackthorn. Quietly. I don’t care about the rejection. I care about the name.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions. That was one of the reasons I kept him close. He knew when to push and when to move.

Once he was gone, I spread the old parchment under the light again. I’d looked at this section more times than I could count. The burn marks covered most of the important lines. But something about seeing the name Vale made me tilt the page differently.

There. Faint grooves in the parchment where someone had written hard before the damage was done.

I leaned in.

One word came through clearly enough.

Ebonreach.

Right beside it, partially hidden but still readable, was the same name from the report.

Vale.

I stayed there for a while, staring at it.

Ebonreach wasn’t on any map I’d ever trusted. The few mentions I’d found treated it like a story people told when they wanted to sound like they knew something ancient. A lost sanctuary. A place that had either fallen or been erased on purpose.

If a living Vale had just severed herself from one of the stronger packs in the region, and if that name was tied to Ebonreach, then the timing was too clean.

The moon was getting weaker.

The old sites were failing.

And a bloodline that should have disappeared was suddenly visible again.

I rolled the parchment up carefully and locked it away.

Whatever was starting to wake under the thinning light, it wasn’t going to stay quiet much longer.

Neither was I.