Ashes of Hollow Moon

Chapter 18

 Ashes of Hollow Moon

 POV: Adelina McKenna

The mountains shifted as I moved north.

They grew sharper, the air thinner, the silence deeper. The deeper I climbed, the more it felt like I was walking into the breath of the past.

The land changed underfoot too. The trees leaned differently. The air was older. Every footstep echoed with something I couldn’t name grief, maybe. Or warning.

By the third day, I found the glyph Oya mentioned.

A moon, carved into the stone of a cliff wall.

Not a perfect circle.

A crescent etched in flame.

It glowed faintly when I touched it, warm against my fingers.

A lock.

Or a call.

I followed the trail beyond it, up a path that no map marked, past a crumbled tree line, until the ridge opened to a sunken valley.

There, nestled between jagged rocks and cloaked in shadow, stood what remained of the Hollow Moon refuge.

A stone keep, half-collapsed.

A ring of abandoned shelters, cracked and moss-covered.

Old bones scattered across a training yard, their bleached whiteness a reminder: this place wasn’t just abandoned.

It was massacred.

And still, I wasn’t alone.

The first arrow missed on purpose.

The second one didn’t.

It embedded in the tree behind my head with enough force to split bark.

I dropped into a crouch and raised my hands.

“I’m not here to fight.”

“Good,” a female voice called from the trees. “Because you’d lose.”

A tall woman emerged from the shadows, her bow still drawn.

Hair shaved on one side. A thick scar running from her chin to her collarbone. Dark eyes narrowed in challenge.

Two others followed wolves in partial shift. Fangs showing. Eyes gold with suspicion.

My wolf didn’t growl.

She waited.

Measured.

I rose slowly.

“I’m Adelina McKenna,” I said. “Daughter of Callen of the Ash Tongue. Matron-born. Flamebranded.”

No reaction.

Then the woman stepped closer.

And sniffed.

Her brow furrowed.

Her gaze dropped to my shoulder.

Where the brand still pulsed.

Faintly. Steady.

Like heartbeat.

“Matron blood,” she said at last.

I nodded once.

“Prove it.”

They dragged me to the stone circle at the center of the ruined stronghold.

No words.

No introductions.

The tall woman their apparent leader tossed me a rusted dagger.

“Bleed on the flame stone.”

I didn’t hesitate.

I sliced my palm clean and pressed it to the broken slab.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the stone glowed.

Dimly at first. Then brighter.

The same crescent symbol I saw on the cliff wall burned into its surface, pulsing silver.

The wolves stepped back.

One of them hissed.

Another growled.

“She’s real,” the woman muttered.

“She’s a threat,” another said.

“No,” she replied. “She’s a question.”

They didn’t trust me.

Not even after the mark.

Not even after I gave them my name, my history, and the letter from Caleb.

But they didn’t kill me.

They gave me a bed of straw in the broken temple, cold soup in a cracked bowl, and silence.

I took it.

And waited.

That night, I sat beneath what was left of the old Hollow Moon temple roof, staring up at stars that blinked between broken beams.

I could feel them watching me.

From the shadows.

From the trees.

But I didn’t run.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t explain.

I just stared into the sky and whispered her name.

Lux.

Even now, she moved inside me.

Quiet. Steady.

Waiting.

Just like me.

By dawn, the leader returned.

She stepped into the ruined chamber and sat across from me without ceremony.

“Your father was my Alpha,” she said at last.

I looked up sharply.

“I’m Asha,” she added. “I was his sword.”

I swallowed. “You knew him?”

She nodded. “He bled for us. Died for us. And we still fell.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“You shouldn’t be,” she said. “You didn’t fail us.”

She met my eyes.

“But you’re not him either.”

“No,” I said. “I’m worse.”

She blinked.

“Because I’m not here to mourn Hollow Moon,” I said. “I’m here to rebuild it.”

The next hours were trials.

Asha made no apologies.

She brought wolves forward rogues, half-shifters, and old Hollow Moon sentries. Each one tested me.

One challenged me to a fight.

Another to a tracking test.

The third simply stared at me and said, “Shift.”

I did.

Without pain.

Without hesitation.

Silver eyes. Branded shoulder. Fire beneath my fur.

They saw.

And they began to believe.

By sundown, Asha stood at the crumbled edge of the training yard and spoke.

“She is not Callen. She is not Moon Council. She is not Alpha.”

She turned to me.

“She is something else.”

Then, to the pack:

“She will lead, or she will fall. But she will not lie.”

And they nodded.

One by one.

Not loyalty.

But acknowledgment.

The first step toward something more.

That night, I stood at the edge of the hollow, watching the firelight flicker off stone.

And for the first time since the bond was broken…

Since I ran from Silver Fang…

Since I was left bleeding in the snow…

I didn’t feel alone.

I felt like a leader.

Still unproven.

Still learning.

But no longer lost.

I pulled out Caleb’s letter and read it again.

“The bond was severed, but not broken.”

I closed my eyes.

Dax.

Somewhere, he was bleeding too.

But I couldn’t afford to bleed for him anymore.

I had a child to protect.

A pack to

gather.

And a war coming for us all.

Let them come.

Let them see.

Hollow Moon wasn’t ashes anymore.

It was embers.

And I was the wind.