Chapter 12

{Casper’s Pov}

I didn’t just leave Tyrion there. He wasn’t just an old wolf. He was like a grandfather to me, a true father figure when I didn’t have one. He was even one to mom… It hurts that I can’t even mourn him. I have to show strength to the pack no matter what.

“How did mom do this for over a decade?” I question myself.

Picking up his body which due to the heat, had already started showing early signs of rigor mortis I created a pyre in his honour and set it ablaze. I watched for hours as he burned… before getting his ashes and pouring them into an urn. It’s the least I could do for him.

It’s already morning by the time our efforts to stop the spreading flames result. There’s no time to mourn the dead. The council, even without Mom,  already set a meeting.

We met in the ruins of what used to be the council tent.

There was no time to prepare it. No time to bury what we lost. Most of the surviving wolves were already patching tents, carrying buckets of ash-tainted water, and dragging salvaged supplies into makeshift storage pits. The ones who couldn’t walk were laid out in neat rows, a silent testament to how unprepared we’d been.

I stood with Ophelia, Adolph, Basten, and Magnus in a rough circle around the scorched table that held Tyrion’s old maps. None of us had slept. We reeked of smoke, blood, and exhaustion.

“He’s dead,” I said, the words dry and final. “Tyrion’s gone.”

A beat of silence.

Adolph bowed his head. Basten clenched a fist. Magnus shifted, eyes darting to the soot-dusted ground. Ophelia didn’t speak, just nodded once, her jaw tightening.

I didn’t let myself sit. Sitting felt too much like giving in. “He died trying to stop Osiris, the bastard came early, hours before we expected. He fought him, but…”

“Your mother?” Ophelia finally asked.

I hesitated. “Taken.” Magnus cursed under his breath as Basten rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Gods,” he muttered. “How did it all go so wrong?”

“Because we were lied to,” I snapped, then sighed. “Maybe not entirely. But misled, I unrolled Tyrion’s last scroll, charred at the edges, a few words smudged out from the fire. It’s a miracle how it survived that inferno.

“These were his notes. About the plans. About where Jade said the ambush happened. Osiris didn’t attack by accident. He planned this.”

Adolph leaned over the map. “That’s the valley pass,” he pointed out. “Hard to breach unless you know where the ridgelines thin.”

“Exactly.” I tapped the ink patch where Tyrion had drawn crude sketches of choke points. “But look. This right here… It’s not just the terrain he mapped. He tracked Osiris’ movements. There were sightings.”

Ophelia leaned in closer. Her eyes scanned Quickly, he was camping out there? That close?”

“He’s been watching us. For weeks.”

Basten swore. “And we didn’t even see him coming.”

The tent flap shifted, and a shadow lingered in the entrance before stepping in.

Jade.

He was pale, weak, but standing. Someone had wrapped his ribs, and he leaned on a broken spear like a cane.

Magnus moved to stop him. “You shouldn’t be here. You need rest”

“I asked him to come,” I interrupted, stepping forward. “He said he had something to say. Something important.”

Jade limped toward us. Every step looked like a pain. 

“I… Lied…,” he said before any of us could speak.

The words hung there. Heavy. None of us understood what he meant yet.

He looked at each of us, eyes sunken but clear. “Osiris threatened my team. He said if I didn’t mislead the pack if I didn’t delay the warning, he’d make sure none of them survived. So I told Ryanna two days. But the truth is... the attack was always tonight. But…. but… I made myself believe it was worth it because they survived.”

Ophelia stared at him. Her face was blank at first, then her fists curled.

“You lied?” Her voice trembled. “You sat there in the infirmary, letting us plan and prepare for a false timeline, you let us believe we had time!”

Jade didn’t flinch. “And if I hadn’t?”

“We might’ve saved more,” she hissed.

“Or we might’ve died sooner,” he shot back, his voice breaking. “They were already surrounded. We were bait. We were bait, Ophelia. And the only way I got out was by playing the part.”

Magnus looked away. His hands trembled at his sides.

“My sister,” he muttered. “She was with your unit.”

Jade's jaw clenched. “She survived too.”

Magnus snapped his head up, letting out a sigh of relief. It didn’t make anyone feel better, knowing they were trapped… at least they were alive. It was something.

The silence that followed was tense, a breath caught in too many lungs.

I stepped between them.

“Enough.”

Ophelia opened her mouth, but I raised a hand.

“I want to scream too,” I said quietly. “I want to break things. But this? This right here is what Osiris wants. For us to fracture. To stop trusting each other.”

Jade looked at me. His face was a battlefield of guilt and sorrow.

“He did what he thought he had to,” I said. “He’s not the one who lit the fires. Osiris is. He’s the one who took my mother. He’s the one we hunt next.”

Basten nodded, stepping closer to the map again. “So what’s the plan?”

I didn’t answer immediately. My eyes drifted back to Tyrion’s notes, the last testament of a man who died trying to protect us. I thought of his blood on my hands, and of the promise he made to my mom. Of the weight in his voice when he said Osiris wasn’t done.

We would find him. But more than that...

I thought of Jade, forced to lie. Of Magnus, who almost lost his sister. Of Mom, out there somewhere, fighting for her life. And I thought of the pack. Rebuilding in the ashes. Breathing, somehow… Still standing.

Even when half of me wanted to doubt, wanted to scream that someone should have seen this coming… I held it in.

Because Osiris fed on doubt. He weaponized it.

And as I stared down at the maps, only one thought dug deep in my chest:

Who else has Osiris turned?