The Lost Beta 20 - Tides of Memory and Blood

The whispers of secrets resonated throughout the eastern section of Moonshadow's hallways. Emily tapped her boots gently on the ancient stone floors as she followed a pathway led by her instincts. Though they were just instincts, they tugged at her thoughts, breaking half-formed memories and dreams into baffling snippets. They grew louder as she approached the former war hall. Beside her, Alexander strolled quietly but attentively, his entire body tensed under his shirt. He didn’t hear what she heard. He never did.

The tension between them had returned. It wasn’t born of distrust, but of something else. Emily’s connection to the old Bloodline was growing stronger, and Alexander feared what it might cost her. He had spent too long thinking she was dead; now that he had her, the thought of losing her again to memory, to prophecy, to destiny was unbearable.

They arrived at the war chamber. Emily placed a hand against the runed stone door. It flared with a blood-red light, reacting to her presence. It hadn’t done that since the fall of the ancient Alpha Queen. Dust blew out as the door creaked open. The murals on the interior walls had faded over time, depicting wolves moving in the moonlight, a woman covered in flames, and a kid born of both.

Emily's breath caught as she extended her hand to touch the mural. She was startled by a single picture of a silver-eyed wolf crouching guard over a red cradle. She grasped the edge of a shattered stone table as her knees gave way. Alexander ran to her side and put his arms around her in a protective manner. “Emily?”

“I remember,” she whispered. “I remember... the fire, the betrayal. I was the youngster in the crib.

Alexander's voice was nothing more than a snarl as his hold tightened. “Then it’s true. You are the heir... and this isn’t just a prophecy. It’s your history.”

---

While Emily grappled with revelations, a visitor arrived at the pack borders one who wasn’t expected, yet posed no threat to the guards. A lone hunter dressed in rogues' skins came forward. The wolves were cautious around him because of his unusually emerald eyes. After decades of exile, Alpha Logan, a former Moonshadow warrior, had resurfaced.

The guards brought him to the pack house, where chaos brewed beneath the surface. Logan bowed before Alpha Camden but ignored the Beta council. “I seek only the girl,” he said. “The one whose blood smells like ash and memory.”

Camden, growing desperate to hold power as the prophecy unravelled around him, took Logan’s words as opportunity. “Help me bring her in alive and the Moonshadow throne is yours.”

Logan smirked, a scar splitting his lower lip. “You never could wear a crown without bleeding under it, Camden. I don’t want your throne. I want her power and I’ll tear her apart to get it.”

Their alliance was born of mutual greed. Logan promised to retrieve Emily using forbidden trackers, wolves altered by dark magic who could sniff out memory rather than scent. Camden would finally gain the upper hand. What they failed to understand was that their deal had stirred something much more ancient within the land. 

A raven observed from its spot in the shadows of the council chamber.

---

In the greenhouse behind the packhouse, Emily sat by herself later that night amid brilliant herbs that flowered exclusively in the moonlight. There, Alexander discovered her, his presence laden with unsaid emotion. “You disappeared,” he said quietly.

“I needed space,” she replied, tracing the petals of a moonleaf flower. “Alex, I can barely recognize myself.”

You’re not, he said while crouching beside her, knees touching. You’re remembering who you’ve always been. And I’m scared, Em. Because every time you remember, it feels like you drift further away from me.”

She looked at him then, eyes filled with the ache of love and uncertainty. “I’m scared too. That I’ll become what they want me to be and lose myself... lose *us.*”

He cupped her cheek. “Then let’s make a promise, whatever happens, whatever truths come, we hold onto *us.* Not the titles. Not the war. Just you and me.”

She pressed her lips to his as she leaned closer. It was a commitmental kiss that said, *I'm still here*, rather than one of pleasure. Emily shivered as a cold wind blew through the greenhouse despite their quiet intimacy. Something old had awakened.

---

The next morning, Emily was taken to the Healer’s den. Ever since her last fainting spell, her blood had become reactive pulsing with magic. The healers needed answers. Elira, the oldest of them, cut a shallow line along Emily’s palm and let the blood drip into a crystal basin.

The blood shimmered gold, then turned black.

Gasps filled the room as the basin cracked. Emily's eyelids rolled back as she was pulled into a trance. The picture hit like a storm: a battlefield covered in blood, her wolf in the center, and the dead everywhere. Then, a child, her child held by a figure cloaked in ash.

Her hands trembled as she woke up. Elira knelt beside her, pale. “You saw the future.”

Emily nodded. “Not just mine... everyone’s.”

The visions had changed. They weren’t about the past anymore. The prophecy had shifted timelines. Now, Emily was no longer the ending, she was the beginning.

---

While Emily recovered, Camden made his move. With Logan’s help, he manipulated several high-ranking wolves to question Alexander’s fitness to lead beside the Heir. Camden accused him of treason of keeping secrets about Emily’s bloodline that endangered the pack.

The council was divided. Some stood with Alexander, others with Camden. Tensions exploded during a night council meeting. Words became snarls, and soon, fists and claws. Alexander, forced to defend not only his honor but his bond with Emily, barely held himself back.

Camden declared martial order. “Until Emily is purified of this curse, I will take command for the safety of the pack.”

Emily entered just as the vote was being forced.

“I’m not a curse,” she said, voice clear. “I’m your legacy. And if you try to erase that again, I won’t just fight, I’ll *burn.*”

---

Emily’s words bought her and Alexander time, but not peace. Elira led them to a forgotten wing of the castle that evening. The physician advised, "You must remember everything if you are to survive what is coming."

There was a sealed staircase beneath the chapel. Emily descended it with trembling steps. Alexander followed, holding her hand. At the bottom, they found a stone chamber, the cradle room from her vision, untouched by time.

A crown of bone and starlight sat on a pedestal. Emily was overcome with memories as she grabbed for it, including the night she was locked away, her father's passing, and her mother's voice.

The truth shattered her. Her parents hadn’t just been murdered, they had been betrayed by Camden.

Alexander caught her as she fell. “We’ll make him pay,” he vowed. But Emily, eyes burning with new fire, shook her head. “No... we’ll make them *all* remember what it means to follow the Alpha Queen’s blood.”

---

Word of Emily’s reawakening spread fast. Allies came from distant rogue enclaves, from packs once loyal to her mother. They whispered the old chant: *Blood before the moon. Fire before silence.*

But with allies came enemies. Logan’s hunters circled the borders like shadows. Camden prepared for war. The Moonshadow Pack stood on the brink of civil collapse.

Alexander took command of the loyal guards, while Emily trained with Elira in old elemental magic. The runes on her back began to glow again, symbols long thought extinct. She could call wind, shape fire, speak to the stars.

But her greatest weapon wasn’t magic, it was hope. The wolves who had bowed their heads in shame now lifted them.

Still, Logan watched from afar. “She’s not ready,” he told Camden. “But when she is... we strike.”

---

As dusk bled into night, Emily stood atop the northern wall, watching as a blood moon rose. Alexander joined her, silent.

“This wasn't about reclaiming a title,” she said. “but healing that which is broken.”

“And if it breaks you in the process?” he asked.

“Then you hold the pieces,” she whispered.

With searing love and wordless vows, they shared a kiss. A howl resounded in the forest below, a tone they had never heard before. Distant. Hollow.

Then, a horn.

Alexander froze. “That’s not a warning horn. That’s a call to war.”

Emily turned, eyes glowing. “Then let them come. The Queen’s blood remembers.”

**The war horn signals the arrival of an unknown army approaching the borders but they bear neither Moonshadow nor rogue sigils…**