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Chapter 22 - Chapter Twenty-Two: The Moon Does Not Beg

They marched in silence.

Six hundred strong—wolves, warriors, halfbloods, defected nobles, and moonless seers.

From Kaduwa's high valley, across the Deadroot Flats, through the Windscar Pass, until only the jagged edge of Eclipse Hollow remained between them and the summit.

At the front:

Elara.

Caelina.

And Zela, wrapped in flame-threaded armor, her spear shimmering with symbols only the moon understood.

The air was different now.

Heavy.

Hungrier.

It smelled like memory.

"When the sky tightens its belt, even the rivers hold their breath."

 

Caelina walked barefoot. Not out of humility.

Out of necessity.

Each step she took bled whispers into the earth.

"She's waking the Song," said Adisa quietly.

"What song?" asked a young moonling beside him.

"The one only Firstbloods carry," Sango answered. "The one the gods buried when Lycaena died."

Indeed—each mile seemed to pull something unseen from Caelina's spine. Her skin shimmered in the heat, yet her breath stayed cool.

By the time they reached the edge of the Hollow, the land trembled.

And then, it began.

 

The Wolf Storm.

It was not of cloud or thunder.

It came from within.

One by one, soldiers along the march line collapsed—not from exhaustion, but from their bodies ripping into forms they hadn't chosen.

Shifted.

Uncalled.

Uncontrolled.

A young girl with no bloodline history sprouted claws and sobbed into her hands.

A former palace cook burst into fur and howled as her bones lengthened.

Even Zela's pupils expanded into gold, her fingertips sparking flame without touching flint.

The march halted.

Cries echoed.

The oldbloods stood at attention, backs straight, eyes wide.

Caelina turned to Elara.

"They're not transforming by the moon," she said, voice distant. "They're transforming by me."

Elara's breath caught.

"When the fire dances before you strike the flint, it is no longer yours to command."

 

In the palace, Myra felt it too.

Far away. Subtle. Like an ache in the blood.

She stared out her tower window, a goblet of pomegranate wine trembling in her hand.

"They're stirring the bloodlines," she murmured.

A priestess of the Pale Order stood behind her. "The old magic. It's responding to her."

Myra crushed the goblet in her fist.

"Then let the ground eat her before she reaches the summit."

 

Back on the Hollow trail, Elara stabilized the camp.

A protective circle of silver-dust was drawn.

Wards were set. Elders called to calm the newly turned.

But not all could be stopped.

One boy—no more than sixteen—ran screaming into the woods, his wolf-form half-baked, eyes glowing white.

Sango followed him.

But when he returned, he said only, "The forest took him."

"Not every howl was meant to return home."

 

That night, Elara and Caelina stood by the fire.

The moons were now almost aligned—one silver, one red—circling each other like knives ready to strike.

Caelina knelt and pressed her hand to the soil.

"It remembers me."

Elara joined her.

"You're not just here to reclaim truth," she said. "You're here to wake it."

Caelina looked up.

"No more secrets. No more thrones forged by fear. We either return the wolves to the light—or we burn with the old blood."

 

At sunrise, they moved again.

Slow. Intentional.

No drums. No songs.

Just the sound of claws over earth, steel over back, and one prophecy whispered in the wind:

"When the wolves stop waiting for permission, the throne will beg for silence."

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