Blood Oath
They camped beneath the crumbling stones of an old temple, half-swallowed by the forest. Moonlight filtered through shattered arches, painting silver on the moss-covered floor. Alaric sat in silence, his claws soaked clean, his breathing calm but shallow.
He was still getting used to being again.
Across the fire, Lyra crouched near her pack, lighting incense and muttering old words under her breath. Alaric studied her face—the same cheekbones as their mother, the same determined crease in the brow. She had grown into a warrior.
"You died thirteen years ago," she said without looking up. "Burned alive in front of the Hollow's altar. But you were never truly gone."
"I remember the fire," Alaric said, voice low. "And the chains. But not you."
"They wiped your memories with iron and moonroot. Old magic. Illegal and forbidden—but the High Circle feared what you were becoming."
He looked down at his hands—half-man, half-wolf. "A monster?"
She shook her head. "A leader. A king, if you had wanted it. The last direct bloodline to Fenraak, the first werewolf. Our ancestors were guardians of the balance. Then the Church twisted it."
Alaric frowned. "They told us the werewolf curse came from sin. From bloodshed."
"A lie," she said. "We weren't cursed—we were chosen. But the old pact was broken when the Moonstone was shattered. That's when the Wraithbound first came. When the true werewolves began to vanish."
Alaric looked up. "And now they're hunting me."
"They're hunting us all," she said. "But you're the first reborn. If others are out there, they'll feel your presence. The Wraithbound will try to find them before you do."
Alaric stared into the fire. "So what now? I just walk into the Hollow and announce I've come back from the dead?"
Lyra smirked. "Not yet. First, we need allies. There's a pack that survived in the East—descendants of those who fled before the purges. We find them. We wake the bloodline."
She drew a dagger and held it toward him.
"A blood oath," she said. "To reclaim our kind. To end the Circle. And to find the truth about what you were meant to be."
Alaric hesitated—then reached out and sliced his palm.
Blood met steel.
The fire flared high, casting monstrous shadows across the ruins.
And far to the north, beyond mountain and frost, something else stirred—an ancient voice in a dead language, whispering that the Moonborn had returned.