MasukEmber Frost’s POVAxel forced himself to straighten his back.“I know people don’t like me,” he said quickly. “I’m strict. I don’t talk much. Fine. But don’t throw this kind of filth at me just because you’re angry.”The more he spoke, the faster his words came.“I’ve fought beside these people for years. We’ve bled together. Nearly died together.” His eyes moved around the room. “They know me.”His voice cracked slightly.“I’ve stood with this team through everything.” He shook his head hard. “I would never turn on Henry.”The room stayed painfully quiet.The silence only made him more frantic.“She’s twisting things on purpose,” he continued. “Making me sound like some monster so nobody questions her anymore.”For a moment, he actually looked pitiful.Like a man trying to hold water in his hands while it kept slipping through his fingers.Ellan frowned deeply.“You’re saying you’ve been wrongfully accused?”“Of course that’s what this is!” Axel snapped immediately.A few people exch
Ember Frost’s POVThe werewolf elders continued working in silence, their hands moving quickly as they tried to stabilize Captain Henry’s condition. No one dared speak.The room had gone so quiet that even the sound of shifting legs felt loud against the silence.Then Axel suddenly snapped.He stepped between the elders and the bed, cutting off their movements with a sharp hand gesture.“Stop crowding him,” Axel said impatiently. “Can’t you see his condition is getting worse?”“We need space to continue the treatment,” Elder Anna replied.“And if your treatment kills him?”That finally made the room tense up again.One of the elders hesitated, but Axel didn’t look at them again.Before anyone could react, he kicked a chair back, dragged it across the floor with a harsh scrape, and dropped down beside the bed like he planned to stay there all night.“Anyone who wants to touch him can step over my body first.”His eyes were red from exhaustion, but the glare he threw at us was full of
Ember Frost’s POV“Starting from this day, you’re not allowed to go near him anymore!”“What if she makes it worse?” Someone asked.“That’s right, she's no good!”A few of them quickly moved to block my path, like stopping me from getting near Henry could undo what had already happened. I stared at them in disbelief.They looked terrified. Angry. Desperate.And desperate people always needed someone to blame.Axel’s face was pale with exhaustion, but his eyes burned red with fury. He grabbed the front of my clothes before anyone could stop him.“You expect us to be grateful for this?” Axel barked. His breathing was uneven, anger and panic mixing together. “Just look at him!” I glanced toward Henry lying motionless on the bed.The blankets beneath him were stained dark in some places, and faint frost still clung to parts of his skin. Even unconscious, his face looked tense, trapped somewhere between pain and exhaustion.Axel noticed me looking.His fingers dug deeper into my sleeve.
Ember Frost’s POVThe whole space looked worse by the second.Large void distortions had opened across the system space, spreading in unstable clusters. Some were small. Others expanded far enough to make my chest tighten just looking at them. They didn’t stay stable. The edges kept flickering, like the system was struggling to keep them contained.A cold feeling crawled up my spine.“What do we do about those?” I asked quietly, unable to take my eyes off them. “Can they even be fixed?”Eira’s expression turned serious. For once, she didn’t answer immediately.“Normally, Henry can self-repair through the system,” she finally said. “Slow process, but it stabilizes over time.” She looked at the spreading void distortions ahead and exhaled slowly. “But it seems his condition is far too unstable. This system barely has enough integrity left to maintain itself, let alone run proper recovery cycles.”“So there’s nothing we can do?” I asked.“I didn’t say that.” She rubbed her forehead. “Eld
Ember Frost’s POV“Watch its pattern,” I said. “Mark every shift.”I closed my eyes briefly and expanded Lunaris again.This time, I didn’t push it aggressively.I let it spread quietly, controlled and precise.It moved through the lower structure—through fractured links and unstable spatial threads. Instead of targeting the fragment directly, I focused on the paths it used to shift itself.One by one, those routes began to lock down.Broken connections sealed.Unstable channels narrowed.Open pathways between distortion layers closed gradually, limiting its movement completely.Suddenly, a violent pressure slammed into the sealed zone, like something striking from the inside with full force. The containment held—but it groaned under impact.My pulse jumped.It was fighting inside the seal.Eira’s expression tightened.“This isn’t good,” she said. “It will affect Henry.”Another surge hit.The entire structure shook.The seal rippled under strain. Even the system beneath reacted to th
Ember Frost’s POVThose two words stopped me cold. Had she found it—the thing controlling all of this? I really hoped she had.For a moment, she said nothing.Her eyes still burned red. If she had found the source, why hadn’t she pulled out yet?A knot tightened in my chest.I started pacing. The room was cold, but sweat had already gathered on my forehead. Every second stretched longer than the last.If she didn’t say something soon, I was pulling her out myself.Then Eira hissed, “Oh… so you can transform. You keep surprising me.”Her fingers pressed harder against Henry’s chest.The air around her shifted.“Calm down, Ember,” Elder Anna said quietly. “Your worry is making it harder for her.”A cold pull swept through the space, faint at first, then growing stronger.Elder Anna and Ellan moved closer to check on Eira and Henry.“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice tight.“We don’t know,” Ellan replied, still watching carefully.“I can’t just sit here doing nothing—I need to see what
Ember Frost’s POVThat was how we were supposed to reach them before it was too late.The mark we bear wasn’t just for tracking. It had a crude messaging feature too. If it came into contact with blood, it would light up, sending out a signal that anyone nearby could detect.At first, I thought the
Ember Frost’s POV“That’s right.” I stared at the fresh markings in the stone. For a split second, I could’ve sworn the wall shifted just barely, like something underneath had rolled over.No one spoke. Not because there was nothing to say, but because every thought felt useless. What was happening
Ember Frost’s POVNow it was Orion’s turn to face me, and I felt a sudden urge to hide.“Hey, don’t do this! You need some fresh air,” he said, reaching for the blanket cocoon I’d wrapped around myself.I recoiled, trying to inch away. “No… just leave me here for now,” I mumbled, dragging myself to
Ember Frost’s POV“I’ve rarely had dreams since I was a child,” Eira said, her voice calm but thoughtful. “Later, I read my mother’s notes and realized why; it’s a side effect of the prophecy bloodline. Once a witch is tied to a prophecy, her dreams are no longer ordinary. They’re either glimpses of







