The air in Nightveil turned bitter before the first scream was heard. Wind carried the scent of scorched soil and burning iron—wrong, unnatural. Zarek stood at the edge of the high stone terrace that overlooked the valley, his silver eyes narrowed to slits. He had felt it before the scouts returned—something old, cruel, and calculated."The children," Elias Hale said grimly, appearing beside him. "They've taken them."Zarek's fists clenched. "From where?""Redbrush. Embertrail. Even the frostline clans. All allied packs."They were targeting the most vulnerable. The future.The war council was summoned within the hour. Warriors, advisors, and bond-forged kin filed into the circular chamber carved into the mountain's spine. Flames danced in lantern sconces as tension thickened the air like fog.Veyra entered last, wrapped in a dark cloak lined with wolf fur, her bare feet silent on the stone. Her eyes—glacial, wild, resolute—met Zarek's across the table."You already know what I'm goin
Veyra had decided to sneak off to go find the mirror stone on her own. Unknown to her Lioren had seen her and followed through. The entrance to the ruins of Fenwyre loomed before them—massive, vine-draped pillars carved with glyphs older than any spoken tongue. Veyra felt the air shift as she stepped across the threshold. It was like walking into memory. The stone beneath her bare feet pulsed faintly with a magic not her own, yet not entirely foreign either.Lioren trailed her, favoring his right leg where an earlier skirmish had left a nasty gash. His hand never strayed far from the hilt of his blade, but even steel felt pitiful here. The walls hummed. The shadows moved. Whispers crawled along the edges of Veyra's thoughts.They were not alone."Veyra," Lioren said softly, "are you sure this is it?"She nodded, eyes tracing the runes above a shattered archway. "It calls to me. The Mirror Stone is here. I can feel it... like a pulse under my skin."He didn't argue. He never did. Not w
The night tasted like ash and fury.Veyra stood barefoot at the edge of the cliff, the wind thrashing her cloak against her legs as if the skies themselves mourned. Below her, the forest bowed in silence, shadows swallowing the trees whole. Jon was alive—but barely. His wounds, carved by Nyros' wrath, had turned her blood to ice. She had never heard him scream like that. Not even during the war with the Obsidian Fang.She could still see his face as he was carried back to Nightveil—bruised, bloodied, breath shallow. She had touched his broken chest, her hands trembling, and whispered his name over and over until her voice gave out. That had been the last crack in her restraint.Now, she burned.There were no tears left. Only vengeance. Only fire.The full moon had risen high, pregnant with ancient light, silver bleeding through the dark clouds. It called to her, louder than it ever had before. Not a whisper. A command.She dropped her cloak, letting the cold embrace her. She was marke
The night was thick with frost, the kind that clung to every breath like a warning. Jon Hale stood at the edge of Maelin's ruined study, the shattered remains of her spellbooks scattered beneath his boots. Most had burned in the Order's first raid, their ashes swept away in the chaos that followed—but not all. One leather-bound tome had remained hidden, wedged behind a false panel in the stone hearth. It reeked of wild magic and memory, the kind of ancient knowledge Maelin had kept even from Elias.Jon's fingers trembled as he flipped the brittle pages. Symbols danced in ink and blood—some faded with time, others pulsing faintly with enchantment. His eyes narrowed, locking onto the prophecy written in a trembling, half-mad scrawl:"When the five are bound, the sixth will rise.Born not of love, but of the shadow's lie.The mirror soul shall seek her light—And if the white wolf chooses wrong... the world shall die."His breath caught. "The mirror soul..."Nyros.He was the sixth. Not
The training ground echoed with the sound of impact—flesh against flesh, bone threatening to break, growls that vibrated through stone. Dust spiraled beneath their feet, kicked up by every savage strike and counter. Zarek's body moved like a storm—wild, relentless, fury forged into fists and fire. Lioren, ever the ice to Zarek's flame, countered with a cold precision that bordered on merciless. Every hit he delivered was measured, meant to incapacitate, not maim—but the message beneath the restraint was clear: 'Back down.'Neither of them would.Spectators had long fled. The circle was empty but for the two mates, locked in the kind of fight that only ends one of two ways—submission or death."You're always so arrogant." Zarek's voice was raw with rage, breathless as blood trickled from his mouth.Lioren's lip curled, his eyes glowing with that glacial silver that chilled even the fiercest wolves. Zarek lunged, tackling Lioren with a snarl, pinning him to the ground with a feral roar
The wind howled over the ridges of Nightveil as if mourning something not yet lost. But Veyra felt it—bone deep and lingering. The tremor beneath her skin had not ceased since she first saw him... the Sixth. Nyros. His name slithered in her mind like smoke, twisting around her thoughts until she could no longer tell where she ended and he began.She stood alone at the edge of the cliffs beyond the training fields, arms wrapped tightly around herself as the wind whipped her silver hair in wild directions. Her breath came shallow. The moon above was fractured by dark clouds, casting broken light over the valley. For days now, her senses had been slipping—visions flickering at the edge of her sight, voices curling through her ears like secrets too old to hold.And tonight... he walked through her mind again."Do you see now?" a voice purred through the shadows of her thoughts. "What we could become?"Veyra squeezed her eyes shut, fingernails digging into her palms until she drew blood. Y