The fires had not yet died.
Ashwood burned behind them — towers crumbling in slow collapse, smoke staining the moonlight in shades of black and crimson. Screams echoed like fading prayers through the broken walls, while shadows crawled across the battlefield as if the night itself had gained fangs.
Lyra stood atop the shattered gate, her armor scorched, blood crusting her skin. Her blade, Shadowfang, hung limp in her grip, glowing faintly with the last of its silver flame.
But her eyes were sharp.
Below, the remnants of the Ashwood guard regrouped. Only three dozen remained from a force of two hundred. Kaelen barked orders, while Varra helped drag the wounded into the broken remnants of the chapel.
A gust of wind carried the smell of death — burnt fur, blood, earth.
Lyra barely flinched.
She had smelled worse.
She had seen worse.
But never from her own brother's hand.
A child's scream broke her trance.
She spun and leapt from the wall, her boots skidding across rubble. She followed the sound through a collapsed corridor, her senses sharpened beyond human — she caught the scent of the child, and the stench of something else.
Shadowspawn.
She found them near the east wing — a twisted beast of sinew and bone bearing down on a small girl, maybe eight, sobbing behind a broken table.
Lyra didn't hesitate.
She struck with a cry, driving Shadowfang into the beast's spine. It howled — a sound like metal grinding in water — before disintegrating into smoke and ash.
The girl stared at her, eyes wide.
"You're the Moonmarked," she whispered.
Lyra blinked.
"Who told you that?"
"The dark one… the one with the golden eyes. He said you'd come."
Lyra's blood ran cold.
Kael.
She scooped the child into her arms and sprinted back toward the central keep.
Varra met her halfway. Her face was bloodied, her left eye swollen shut.
"Lyra — they've breached the chapel. We're outnumbered five to one."
"We hold the line," Lyra said, handing her the child. "Get her below. The hidden sanctum."
Varra hesitated. "That place hasn't been touched in years."
"That's exactly why it'll be safe."
As Varra ran, Lyra turned back to the battlefield.
And there, standing amidst the smoke, was him.
Kael.
Human again, blood staining his pale armor, crown of obsidian thorns upon his brow.
And in his hand… not his blade.
But her father's.
Alpha Rykan's sword.
The blade of the First Moon.
"You shouldn't have survived," he said, voice calm as a lullaby.
"Neither should you," she replied.
They faced each other across the battlefield — a queen of ash and a king of shadows.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them rumbled.
A deafening howl rose — not Kael's, not the spawn's — but something deeper.
Ancient.
From beneath the earth.
From beneath Ashwood.
Lyra staggered as the stone split open in a perfect line, and from the chasm rose a creature unlike any she had seen.
A wolf the size of a cathedral, made of bone and flame, its eyes twin moons of bleeding silver.
It snarled, and the world shook.
Kael didn't look surprised.
He looked reverent.
"The Hollow Wolf has awakened," he said softly. "And with it, our time begins."
Lyra stared at the thing, heart hammering. She could feel her blood react — feel the call of something old and binding in her veins.
And then, a voice.
Not Kael's. Not hers.
A voice from within the beast.
"Child of the silver oath… you have failed your blood."
"Child of the silver oath… you have failed your blood."
The voice wasn't a whisper. It was thunder in her bones, a pressure behind her eyes, forcing her to kneel.
Lyra gritted her teeth as the Hollow Wolf stepped fully into the ruined courtyard, its paws cracking ancient stone like brittle glass. Its breath was embers. Its shadow reached farther than light could stretch.
"What are you?" she hissed, pushing herself upright.
Kael answered first.
"It is the soul of our ancestors. The judgment we were promised. The wolf that guards the boundary between this world and the next."
Lyra turned to him, disbelief twisting her face.
"You unleashed it?"
He smiled. "No. You did."
The Hollow Wolf's gaze bore into her, and her body burned.
Visions flooded her mind—flashes of the first Alpha bound in silver chains, of moons eclipsed by blood, of a woman's scream echoing in a forest of ash. Her mother's voice. Her father's oath.
The Moon Pact.
Lyra saw it now: the truth buried beneath Ashwood. Her family had made a bargain — not with the gods, but with the Gatekeepers. Ancient spirits bound to the land, sealed within the Hollow Wolf. In exchange for strength and dominion, the first Alpha had sworn their bloodline to a singular task:
Guard the boundary.
But the seal was breaking.
And Kael had torn it open.
Lyra stumbled backward, her breath ragged. She felt something inside her twist — not pain, but awakening.
Her own wolf stirred.
Her blood remembered.
Her bones began to change.
Kaelen appeared beside her, eyes wide. "Lyra! What is that—"
"Run," she said hoarsely. "Get everyone below. Now."
"Not without you—"
"That's an order, Kaelen!"
He hesitated — then nodded, disappearing into the smoke to gather the survivors.
Lyra turned back to Kael, who now knelt before the Hollow Wolf, his hands bleeding from fresh wounds carved across his chest — ritualistic.
The beast lowered its head.
And Kael whispered, "I offer my soul in full."
The Hollow Wolf bared its teeth… and swallowed him whole.
"KAEL!" Lyra screamed.
But he did not cry out.
There was only silence.
Then — light.
The creature began to glow, runes igniting across its body, pulsating with Kael's life force.
And when it looked up again, its eyes were not silver.
They were gold.
Kael had become the vessel.
Lyra raised Shadowfang, heart pounding. The world around her seemed distant, muted by the enormity of what now stood before her.
The final guardian of the Gate had fallen.
The Hollow Wolf — the soul-eater, the devourer of oaths — had awakened.
And her brother now wore its skin.
"I won't let you destroy this land," she whispered. "Even if I have to kill you again."
The beast stepped forward, and its mouth opened—not to roar, but to speak.
"Then come, Moonmarked. Let this be your final vow."