1
Every step south felt like walking back into a grave I thought I'd buried.
The trees here grew thicker, darker choked by fog and silence. Crows watched from gnarled branches like sentinels judging a queen in exile. And my breath frosted, even though it was spring.
"The trees remember," Vessia muttered beside me, her hand never straying far from her dagger. "Blood was spilled here. Too much."
"Not just blood," I whispered. "Secrets."
Behind us, Cailen kept his bow close, and Ronan flanked the rear. I'd insisted on a small party just the four of us.
Too many warriors, and it would look like a threat.
Too few, and we looked like prey.
But nothing prepared me for who we were walking toward.
Alpha Caelum.
My first love.
My first betrayal.
And the first wolf who ever taught me the cost of choosing power over the heart.
2
We reached the border of his territory at dusk. No guards. No alarms.
Just the haunting wail of a warning horn when I stepped across the river.
A moment later, they emerged—ten warriors in bone-white armor, eyes glowing faintly in the half-light. Caelum's wolves always looked like ghosts.
The lead stepped forward. "State your name."
"I think he already knows."
His eyes flicked up.
And then Caelum himself stepped from the mist.
He looked exactly as I remembered—only sharper. His black hair was longer now, pulled back in a warrior's braid. His jaw more angular. The gold band on his finger gleamed like a wound.
"Hello, Aurora," he said.
My heart didn't beat faster.
But it remembered how it used to.
"Caelum."
His eyes skimmed over my party, pausing briefly on Cailen whose expression had turned to stone.
Then back to me.
"Still dragging shadows behind you, I see."
"No more than you."
He smiled.
And I remembered that smile.
How it once made me believe I could escape Garrick just by falling in love.
And how wrong I'd been.
3
He led us to his stronghold an ancient fortress carved into the cliffs. The stone still bore old claw marks from past wars, and the wind howled through the open halls like it missed the dead.
"I never expected to see you again," he said, offering me wine in a silver goblet.
"I never expected to come back."
We sat across from each other, a fire flickering between us.
He studied me with those glacier-blue eyes.
"You were going to marry me."
"I was going to run with you," I corrected. "Until you made it clear you wanted to be the next Alpha of Blackwater."
He didn't flinch.
"You chose Garrick instead."
"I chose survival," I snapped.
Silence.
Then he nodded. "And now you're here. Asking me for what? A favor?"
"An alliance."
Cailen stiffened behind me. Vessia remained unreadable.
Caelum laughed. "You think I forgot what you cost me? You left me to face Garrick's wrath. You burned the bridge, Aurora."
"I burned the cage."
He stood suddenly, pacing. "You always were good at speeches. But tell me this what do I gain by helping the woman who broke me?"
"Redemption," I said quietly. "And the chance to kill the wolf who broke us both."
4
He didn't answer right away.
Instead, he poured more wine.
And then said, "There's someone you should see."
He led me down a winding corridor lit by old torches. Each step echoed with ghosts. I didn't ask questions.
Until I heard the voice.
Faint. Raspy.
A whisper of a girl I once knew.
"…Aurora?"
I froze.
Then turned the corner
And saw her.
Lyra.
My handmaiden. My childhood friend. My sister in every way but blood.
And the girl I thought Garrick had killed.
She sat in a cell not bound, but broken. Her once-bright red hair dulled, her skin bruised and pale.
"Lyra?" I breathed.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I told them you'd come," she whispered.
I collapsed to my knees beside the bars.
"I thought you were gone."
"They made it look that way. But Caelum found me. He kept me alive."
I turned to him, fury and gratitude crashing like waves inside me.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't think you deserved to know," he said quietly.
And I couldn't even blame him.
5
That night, Lyra slept in a real bed in my room, her wounds tended by Vessia. I sat beside her until sleep claimed her, brushing her hair the way I used to when we were girls, pretending the world was fair.
When I finally stepped outside, Cailen was waiting.
"You okay?" he asked.
"No."
"Want to pretend?"
I smiled faintly. "Yes."
He fell into step beside me as we walked the outer courtyard.
"You loved him once."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Do you still?"
"No."
But I wasn't sure if I was lying.
He looked at me for a long moment, then said, "He doesn't know you anymore. But I do. You don't need to prove anything."
"I'm not trying to prove," I said softly. "I'm trying to build."
"Then start with this," he said—and took my hand.
Warm.
Steady.
Real.
6
The next morning, Caelum called a council.
His advisors argued.
One called me poison.
Another called me necessary.
Only one, an elder wolf with blind eyes, said, "If Garrick rises, we fall alone. But with her we might just live."
It was enough.
Caelum stood, fists clenched.
"If I do this," he said, "we fight as equals. No Luna. No Alpha."
I stepped forward. "Only wolves. Only war."
He nodded.
"Then we ride at moonrise."
7
Before we left, I stood once more by Lyra's side.
"You're not coming," I told her.
"I can fight."
"I need you to live."
She gripped my hand. "Then you come back. Don't let him win again."
"I won't."
And for the first time in years, I believed it.
8
As we rode back north, Caelum at my side, our combined warriors forming a silent, powerful line behind us, I looked ahead to the horizon.
To the storm that was coming.
To the war that would break the world.
But I no longer felt like a pawn in someone else's story.
I was the one writing it now.
And when Garrick saw me next
He wouldn't be facing a broken Luna.
He'd be facing the queen of her own fire.