The Temple Beneath

The light from Ezra’s mark faded slow—like breath leaving a body. Smoke curling off a fire that had burned too long. He stood in the heart of the ruin, chest heaving, knees shaking, but still upright. The air smelled like dust and blood. His mark—gold and black—glowed steady now. Not a flare. Not a warning. Just... present. Like it had finally decided it belonged to him.

Raen crouched near a broken pillar, blood on his mouth, but his eyes were locked on Ezra—not with hate. With awe. Elen was on the ground behind him, clutching her ribs like her own bones betrayed her, her face pale and twisted with something that looked a lot like fear.

“You don’t get it,” Raen said, voice rough but even. “You don’t know what you’ve woken.”

Ezra stepped forward, boots crunching on broken stone, his voice sharp and exhausted. “Then stop circling it. Say what you mean.”

Raen rose to his feet, slow, brushing the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. That same damn smirk curved his mouth, but the light behind it was gone. “You think this was ever about the wolf in your chest? That mark on your arm? Ezra, you’re not just a gate. You’re standing on what’s behind it.”

Something in Ezra’s stomach went cold.

The ground beneath him pulsed—not violently, just enough to feel it in the soles of his boots. Like something breathing just under the surface.

Mira was helping Lysa to her feet, both of them shaken but alive. Jorrin limped to the edge of the room, one hand on his knife, the other gripping a wall like it might steady him. And Kael—Kael hadn’t moved from Ezra’s side. His shoulder brushed Ezra’s. His presence felt like an anchor.

“What’s down there?” Kael asked, voice low.

Raen looked back at them and smiled, something too soft, too reverent. “Come see.”

He turned, walking straight toward a stone staircase half-buried at the back of the ruin—slick, ancient, carved into the rock like an open wound.

Then came Elen’s voice—quiet, cracked. “Don’t go.”

Ezra turned. “You’ve been pushing us here the whole time. Why stop now?”

Her hands trembled in her lap. “I was wrong. I thought the wolf was the threat. That waking you would give us control.”

She looked up at him, eyes dark, rimmed red. “But the wolf… it wasn’t guarding the gate. It was the gate. And whatever it was holding back—” She didn’t finish.

She didn’t need to.

Because Ezra already felt it.

Below them. Waiting.

---

The stairs were narrow, slick with moisture, the air thick and cold. Each step felt like moving deeper into something that shouldn’t exist. Ezra led, his mark glowing just enough to light the way. Kael followed close behind, steady, his hand brushing Ezra’s back like he couldn’t bear to lose contact. Mira came next, sword out. Jorrin and Lysa brought up the rear—silent, tense.

The deeper they went, the louder the pulse became. Not sound. Feel.

Ezra’s mark burned—not painfully. Just insistently. Like recognition.

The tunnel opened into a chamber so wide it swallowed their footsteps. Walls as black as coal pulsed with veins of faint gold—just like Ezra’s mark. In the center of the space: a platform. Raised. Circular. Carved in spirals and claw-marks. Familiar.

And in the middle of that?

A stone tomb.

Cracked.

Split clean down the center.

Empty.

Ezra froze. “Where’s the body?”

Raen’s voice echoed behind him, eerily calm. “There never was one.”

They turned. Raen stood just inside the chamber, eyes catching the low light like he belonged here.

“Before the packs,” he said, voice quiet. “Before the chapel. Before the Fold. There was something born of fire and will—something that couldn’t die.”

He stepped forward. “When the world refused to bend, it tried to burn it down. And when it failed—they didn’t kill it. They bound it.”

Raen pointed to Ezra. “And your bloodline was built to hold that chain.”

Ezra’s hand curled into a fist. His mark flared, heat rising into his jaw.

“You want to break it.”

“I want to finish it,” Raen said, eyes shining. “The wolf inside you—it’s a fragment. The last echo. It chose you for a reason. Don’t cage it. Let it complete itself.”

The wolf inside Ezra stirred. Not excited.

On guard.

Kael’s fingers brushed Ezra’s back again. Quiet. Sure. “You don’t have to prove anything to him.”

Ezra let out a shaky breath. His whole life had been other people’s stories. His father’s silence. His pack’s fear. Mira’s tests. Raen’s obsession.

He was done being shaped.

He stepped onto the platform.

Stone lit up under his boots.

Raen held his breath.

Ezra dropped to one knee beside the tomb. Pressed a hand to it. Not to open it.

To seal it.

The second his palm hit the stone, his mark ignited—white-gold fire exploding from his chest. The walls lit like they were alive, the tomb thrumming beneath his hand. The wolf inside him roared—but not to break free.

It roared with him.

Together.

Ezra wasn’t waking a god.

He was burying it.

By choice.

Raen shouted, lunging—but Kael tackled him mid-step, slamming him to the floor. Mira raised her sword. The scouts drew knives. But it was already over.

Ezra stood, breath shaking, the tomb beneath his hand now sealed—its cracks glowing faint, molten gold. His mark pulsed once, then settled. Quiet. Balanced.

“Not today,” he said.

Raen gasped beneath Kael’s grip. “You can’t hold it forever.”

Ezra looked down at him.

“Then let’s see how long I last.”

---

Ezra chose restraint over chaos. The tomb is sealed. The wolf is with him—but not unleashed. Yet beyond Raen, beyond the Fold, others have felt what happened in the ruins. The echo is moving through the world. And something else—something older—is listening.