Chapter Eight – The War Seer

The wastelands didn’t welcome wolves.

They warned them.

Even in daylight, the skies above the ruined valley stretched gray and still, like the sun itself had given up. Wind dragged through the jagged trees like breath through broken lungs, and every shadow whispered secrets Mira didn’t want to hear.

Grey led them up the ravine, his limp worse now, though he never slowed.

Mira kept her gaze sharp, her senses wider than they’d been in years. She hadn’t shifted in so long her body ached with the tension of resisting it but here, every hair on her skin stood on end. Her wolf stirred beneath the surface, restless and alert.

“Are we close?” she asked.

“Almost,” Grey said. “He doesn’t live in a house. He lives beneath one.”

“Lovely.”

Liam snorted. “I’m guessing we knock on a crypt and hope he’s home?”

Grey stopped.

“No,” he said. “He’ll find us.”

Before Mira could respond, a deep, craggy voice echoed from the ridge above.

“He already has.”

They turned.

An old man stood in the rocks, tall and skeletal, wrapped in furs that looked centuries old. His eyes were covered by a strip of black cloth, but his face was turned directly toward them. Toward her.

“I smelled her days ago,” he said. “The air changed.”

“Are you the seer?” Mira asked, voice steady.

“I am what’s left of him,” the old man said. “And you are what shouldn’t be.”

Mira stiffened.

He stepped closer, walking with surprising ease over the uneven stone. “You were supposed to die. The blood moon was never meant to rise again.”

“But it did,” she said. “And I want to know why.”

He stopped a few feet from her, lifted a hand, and without touching her, hovered his palm above her heart.

His breath caught.

“The bond is formed. The power awakened.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s begun.”

“What has?”

He dropped his hand.

“The unraveling.”

Mira narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”

The seer turned and motioned for them to follow. “Come. The dead are listening.”

They descended into the rocks, down a narrow path hidden beneath thorn-covered vines. A stone slab slid open as the seer whispered something in an ancient tongue, revealing a staircase carved into the ground.

Inside was dark. Dry. Silent.

Lit only by blue fire.

The walls were covered in runes ancient, glowing. Mira recognized a few.

The old language of the first packs.

He motioned them to sit around the fire. Mira obeyed, but her pulse stayed high.

The seer knelt and began stirring something in a bone cup. The scent of bloodroot, crushed sage, and wolfbane wafted toward them.

Liam frowned. “You drinking that?”

The seer ignored him.

“Mira Lane,” he said, voice hollow. “Daughter of the Iceclaw. Born under the blood moon. Marked by fire.”

Mira's breath caught.

He continued, “You carry not just your bloodline, but the fragments of a broken order. One that dared to craft power into flesh.”

“Fragments?” Mira asked.

“You are not prophecy,” the seer said. “You are interruption. A product of science and sacrifice.”

Grey growled low. “You mean she’s artificial?”

“No. Not artificial. Amplified.”

The room stilled.

The seer drank from the bone cup and let out a rattling exhale.

“You were not the first. But you are the last. Luna-13. The final trial. The only one who survived the bond.”

Mira’s stomach turned.

She had heard whispers growing up. About wolves born not just from mating bonds, but from rituals experiments. She’d dismissed them as stories.

Until now.

“What did they do to me?” she whispered.

The seer looked at her, eyes still hidden, but glowing faintly beneath the cloth.

“They mixed the blood of an Alpha, a seer, and a rogue healer. They bathed your unborn body in moonfire. Your mother swore herself to the moon in blood and bone. And in return, you were born.”

Mira gripped her knees.

Liam’s jaw was locked tight.

Grey watched her carefully, but didn’t move.

“Why?” she asked. “What was the purpose?”

The seer leaned in.

“To lead,” he whispered. “Or to burn it all down.”

Her pulse thundered.

“You are the only one who can resist the Council’s control. You are immune to their binds. That is why the Ghost Howlers want you. To crown you as their Luna and tear down the structure of pack law.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t let them use me.”

“You may not have a choice.”

Silence fell like ash.

Then the seer reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a stone pendant.

He held it toward her.

“This was your mother’s.”

Mira hesitated.

Then took it.

It burned in her palm. Not with heat, but with memory.

“She loved you,” the seer said softly. “But she feared you, too.”

Mira closed her eyes.

“I still don’t know what I am,” she whispered.

“You are the storm between worlds.”

Suddenly, his head snapped up.

His nostrils flared.

“They found you.”

Mira’s eyes widened. “What?”

Grey was already rising. “Ghost Howlers?”

“No,” the seer said. “Something worse.”

Outside, the earth trembled.

And from deep in the woods, a sound split the air.

Not a howl.

A scream.

High-pitched. Twisted. Familiar.

Liam’s face went pale. “That’s not possible.”

“What?” Mira asked.

His voice shook.

“That was Dad’s voice.”

End of Chapter Eight

………………………

What secret has been buried so deep even Liam couldn’t believe it? Who or what is calling to them from the dark? Mira’s family history is unraveling faster than she can run.