In the deepest part of the earth—far below the ossuary ruins and deeper than even Theron's black throne—something ancient stirred.
It did not awaken with memory.
It did not breathe with rage.
It stirred with one thing, and one thing only—
Hunger.
The prison was not shaped like a cage, nor bound by iron. There were no bars, no doors. Only runes—etched in blood older than any known tongue—coiled in forgotten geometry, circling a pit blacker than death itself.
Those runes had once screamed when touched. Now, they whimpered.
Because the seals had cracked.
And what lay below had waited too long.
A force—no longer beast, no longer man—shifted in the dark.
Not a wolf.
Not even a creature.
Something that had once worn fur and fangs, yes. But long ago, it had devoured even its own name to become what it was now. A hunger so pure, so unrelenting, it had erased itself from history just to feed on what remained of others.
And now, it wanted out.
Above ground, the sky rippled unnaturally, as if the heavens themselves were a sheet being torn between two timelines.
Lyra gasped, clutching at her fourth Ring—the one that had never truly healed. The pain that flared through it wasn't normal.
It wasn't hers.
It belonged to something buried.
The Alpha Unbound stood beside her, silent as always, but his voice echoed in her blood when he spoke.
"He stirs."
"The one who devoured oaths."
Kael took an instinctive step forward, sword half-drawn. His voice was low, hoarse. "What is it?"
Cain's jaw tensed. "Not a wolf," he said through his teeth. "Not anymore."
The Unbound's face was stone. "He was called Varyn once. A highborn Alpha of the First Blood. He chose hunger over history. He consumed his bond. Shattered his lineage to become eternal."
Lyra looked at the pulsing sky, her hand trembling against her chest. "And now he's returning?"
"No," the Unbound said with quiet dread.
"Now, he's ravenous."
Far across the plains, atop a blackened ridge, Theron stood still as a statue.
He saw the plume of smoke rise from the north—thick, red as coagulated blood, spiraling like a wound torn into the world.
He felt it before he understood it.
Not power. Not rage.
Shame.
And in that shame, he recognized something.
"What have you done?" he whispered to no one, staring at the mountains he had buried long ago. "What did you leave beneath me?"
But the wind gave no answer.
Only behind him, the bones of his resurrected wolves began to twitch—convulsing in silent horror.
They remembered Varyn. Even if their minds had forgotten the name, their marrow hadn't.
They knew what came next.
They had once tried to flee it.
Back in Icefall, Lyra called the scattered wolves to the Hollow Ring.
They gathered in circles of war and worry, sensing that something far worse than Theron was drawing near.
"The Unbound has returned," Lyra announced, her voice fierce, slicing through the tension like sharpened wind. "But another comes. Not to reclaim a throne…"
"...to consume," Cain finished, stepping beside her.
A murmur of unease rippled through the Ring. Even the alphas of the farthest clans stood silent.
"He eats names," Lyra said, her voice low but unshaken. "He devours bloodlines. Turns memory into void. There will be no legacy if he passes through us. Only ashes."
Kael stepped forward, brow furrowed. "Then how do we stop something that eats the past?"
The Unbound knelt. Pressed his palm into the soil.
"We don't stop him with fire," he said softly. "Nor steel. Not even with blood."
Cain narrowed his eyes. "Then what?"
The Unbound looked up, his eyes burning with a kind of ancient grief. "We fight him with remembrance."
"Memories?" Lyra asked.
"Pain. Love. Truth," the Unbound said. "The very things he erased from himself to become this… this void."
Kael looked skeptical. "You want us to show him what he gave up?"
The Unbound nodded. "We make him feel what he cannot consume."
That night, Lyra walked into the Hollow Ring alone.
The wind had died.
Even the stars above were muted, veiled by black flame clouding the sky.
She dropped to her knees, her fingers raw and trembling, and carved a single name into the earth with the edge of her nail:
VARYN
It was not just a name.
It was a wound.
The ground trembled.
The sky cracked.
Somewhere below, far beneath the bones of ancient wolves, a voice emerged.
It did not speak.
It growled.
No. Worse.
It gnawed.
"You remember me," it rasped from the depths.
"So I will eat you last."
In the pit, bones twisted like vines, melting into black flame. Screams echoed from stone that had no mouths.
A shape began to rise.
Too large for a wolf.
Too broken to be anything else.
Its spine arched in too many places. Its legs were bound with the femurs of kings. Its eyes—if they could be called that—were two bottomless voids, not reflecting light, but drinking it.
And when it opened its maw—
It didn't howl.
It cursed.
Cain fell to one knee, teeth clenched, a scream locked in his throat.
Kael staggered, clutching his temple, eyes wide with fractured memory.
Even the strongest alphas dropped to their hands, choking on lost breath as flashes of forgotten pain returned.
Lyra felt blood drip from the mark on her neck—the fourth Ring, the cursed one—bleeding not from the skin, but from something deeper.
Her bond.
But she stayed standing.
Shaking. Burning. Trembling.
But standing.
"Come then," she whispered, voice shaking like a blade barely held.
"Come and see what the forgotten remember."
From the Hollow Ring's center, black flames rose.
Varyn emerged.
And with him came a silence thick enough to erase.
Not muffle.
Not deafen.
Erase.
One by one, wolves began to forget:
Their mothers.
Their mates.
Their names.
A young she-wolf howled in terror, then paused mid-sound—eyes vacant, name gone.
An elder alpha dropped his banner and stared at his hands, confused why they trembled with no memory of war.
Kael gasped, "He's eating us alive—"
"No," Lyra hissed. "He's erasing who we are."
And still, Varyn rose.
Eyes like twin hungers.
Body stitched with shattered legacy.
He didn't need to speak.
His presence alone undid.
But Lyra's voice pierced that darkness, shaking the Ring:
"You fed on oaths. You buried bloodlines. You silenced names."
She stepped forward, despite the fire licking at her feet.
"But we remember."
She pressed her palm to her chest, over the fourth Ring.
And it pulsed—bright, gold, searing.
Pain lanced through her.
Memory.
Loss.
Love.
"I remember me." she said, voice rising.
"And now, you will too."
In the distance, the Unbound closed his eyes.
Cain stood, even as blood trickled from his ears.
Kael bared his teeth, forcing his mind to stay whole.
The wolves, one by one, lifted their voices—not in fear, but song.
Ancestral howls.
Names called into the wind.
The sound of remembrance.
And for the first time in eons…
Varyn hesitated.
Because somewhere in that song, he heard his own name.
He had eaten everything.
But not this.
Not yet.
And suddenly, he was starving.
But this time, not for flesh.
Not for blood.
For what he had lost.