Command the Storm

Dawn broke over Blackthorn like a bruise—bleeding gold and gray across the sky, raw and unkind. No warmth, just light peeling back the dark, showing everything for what it was: cracked, tired, and on edge.

Ezra stood in the courtyard with both boots buried in mud, steam curling around his ankles as if the ground itself couldn’t sit still. His cloak snapped in the wind. The estate behind him felt quiet—not peaceful, but tight. Wound-up. Waiting.

His mark burned in his skin like a second pulse—not screaming, not raging anymore. Just there. Present. Like it had finally stopped seeing him as a vessel and started recognizing him as something more.

The pack formed a loose ring around him. Not close. Not far. Watching. Mira stood near the gates, her hand resting near the hilt of her sword, eyes flicking between the horizon and Ezra’s face. Two scouts—Jorrin and Lysa—hovered to her right, tension bristling off their shoulders. Kael leaned against the stone steps with his arms crossed, face unreadable but gaze locked onto Ezra, like he was the only one in the world worth watching.

The elders were absent. Cowards in old robes. Ezra didn’t care.

He wasn’t here to ask.

He was here to tell.

“I called this meeting,” Ezra began, voice carrying across the courtyard—not loud, but steady, even. “Not for permission. I don’t need that. I’m here because you deserve to know what’s coming.”

The pack stirred. Nobody moved closer, but heads lifted. They were listening.

He rolled up his sleeve.

His mark pulsed, faint gold threaded with black. Beautiful. Terrifying. Alive.

“This isn’t a curse,” he said. “It’s a key. A seal. My bloodline was tied to something a long time ago. Something powerful. Something… awake.”

A pause. He saw their eyes. Fear. Curiosity. Resentment. Hope.

“And yeah,” he added, quieter now, but fiercer, “it’s awake in me. But I’m the one calling the shots. It doesn’t own me.”

He let the silence stretch.

“I own it.”

Mira stepped forward. Her eyes were steady, voice clipped. “So what does that mean for us?”

Ezra met her gaze. “It means Raen’s done playing puppeteer. We stop waiting for his next move. We make one.”

Kael pushed off the steps, walking to Ezra’s side. Shoulder to shoulder. Unshakable.

“Then we take it to him,” Kael said.

Gasps scattered like leaves. A few wolves stepped back.

“You want to walk into Raen’s territory?” Mira asked, incredulous.

Ezra nodded. “He’s been circling us for weeks. Whispering lies. Pulling strings. It ends tonight.”

“What if that’s what he wants?” she pressed.

“Then we take it before he does.”

---

They moved at dusk. Silent. Swift.

Ezra, Kael, Mira, Jorrin, and Lysa—just five. Enough to vanish in the dark, but not enough to spark war. Ezra’s senses were sharp. Too sharp. Every sound carried weight. Every scent clung to his skin. The wolf wasn’t pushing. It was guiding.

By moonrise, they reached Hollow Valley.

The trees thinned into jagged stone. A temple ruin slouched at the center, half-swallowed by earth, its walls blackened by time and secrets. The air turned heavy—thick with rot and something older than death. Ezra stopped.

His mark responded. Not pain. Not panic. Pressure.

“This is it,” he said.

Kael moved beside him. “This where Raen’s hiding?”

Ezra’s voice was barely a breath. “No. This is where he’s feeding.”

They entered.

The shadows pressed in around them. The air tasted metallic. Ezra’s boots crunched bone-dry roots beneath him. Then—

Movement.

Raen stepped from the dark, slow, smooth, like he’d been expecting applause. Cloaked in fur, smug as ever. Elen followed him, her presence hollowed out, her eyes like dead stars.

“Well,” Raen drawled. “The gate comes walking.”

Mira lifted her sword. Jorrin tensed. Kael’s hand hovered near his blade.

Ezra walked forward.

“No more games.”

Raen’s smile widened. “No game. Just prophecy.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough. You woke it. It bowed. But it still needs… a push.”

Elen raised her hand.

The ground split open.

A wave of darkness poured out—heat, shadow, pressure. Mira and the scouts were flung back. Kael reached for Ezra.

But Ezra didn’t fall.

The wolf inside him didn’t react.

It rose.

Light burst from his chest—gold, obsidian, silver-white, crackling like lightning made of memory. He roared—no, the wolf did. A sound that split the air and shook the stone.

Raen staggered. Elen hit the ground.

“You shouldn’t be able to—”

“I’m not yours,” Ezra said, stepping forward. Light still dancing along his skin. His voice shook the bones of the ruin. “You thought you could use me. Shape me. Break me.”

The wolf’s energy surged, but didn’t fight. It aligned.

Kael was beside him again, face bruised but eyes blazing.

“What now?” he asked.

Ezra looked at Raen, then past him—at the shadows beneath the temple stones.

“Now we end this,” he said.

He raised his hands.

And the storm came.

---

Ezra has stepped fully into the power he once feared—no longer the hunted, no longer the vessel. Raen's plan is fracturing, but the temple still holds truths buried deeper than even prophecy can reach. As the seal cracks wider, Ezra must decide not just how to fight—but what he's truly unleashing.