Chapter 41: What the Silence Took

The silence was worse than the screams.

Autumn knelt in the shattered ruins, Gale’s body limp in her arms, his weight unbearable not because of its mass—but because the bond was gone. Not muted. Not wounded.

Gone.

She pressed her forehead to his chest, trembling, waiting—begging—for the familiar pull, the quiet echo of Kane’s presence, the warmth that had always lived beneath her ribs since the moment their souls had recognized one another.

Nothing answered.

“No,” she whispered, fingers clutching his shirt as if she could anchor him to the world by force alone. “No, no, no—Gale, you promised.”

Around them, the battlefield lay frozen in stunned disbelief. Wolves who moments ago had been enemies now stared at the ruins in hollow silence, freed from possession but stripped raw by what they’d witnessed. The blood moon’s fragments continued to fall like dying stars, dissolving before they touched the ground.

Amaya crawled toward Levi, sobbing as she pressed shaking hands over his chest, l