Darkness had weight.
For three months, Riven floated beneath it.
No dreams.
No nightmares.
No voice calling his name.
Just silence.
Somewhere in the deep ravine beneath the Fourth Kingdom, pale light filtered through cracks in ancient stone.
A slow inhale.
A fragile exhale.
His fingers twitched.
Pain followed.
It did not arrive gently.
It arrived like a reckoning.
Riven's eyes snapped open.
Blurred.
Unfocused.
The world swam in shades of gray and dim silver. He tried to breathe deeply and instantly regretted it. Fire ripped through his ribs. His chest felt as though iron bands had been hammered around it.
He tried to move.
His body refused.
Bandages wrapped him from shoulder to waist. Dark herbs and layered wrappings covered his torso, faintly glowing with lunar inscriptions.
His throat was dry.
His lips cracked as he forced sound through them.
"Wha… where…"
His voice broke.
Across the chamber, a staff tapped once against stone.
An old figure shifted in the shadows.
"You are not dead," the woman said calmly.
Her voice was steady. Not warm. Not cruel. Simply certain.
Riven turned his head slowly.
Even that small motion sent agony down his spine.
The old woman sat near a low stone table covered in jars, dried herbs, and carved bone tools. Her hair, streaked with silver and ash-black, fell over one shoulder. Deep lines marked her face, but her eyes were sharp too sharp for someone who should have been fragile.
"Who…" Riven swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
The woman studied him for a long moment before answering.
"Riven Thorn," she said quietly. "You do not know who I am."
She rose slowly and approached, leaning on her staff.
"But I know you."
She stopped beside his stone slab.
"I know your mother."
The words sliced through the haze.
Riven's blurred eyes sharpened slightly.
"My… mother?"
His breathing hitched painfully.
"You knew her?" he rasped.
The woman nodded once.
"Your mother before she was Tyrella Thorn…"
Her gaze hardened slightly.
"…was Tyrella Nocturne."
The name struck him harder than any blow Rigor had delivered.
Riven's muscles tensed instinctively.
He tried to push himself upright.
Pain detonated through his fractured ribs.
A broken gasp tore from his throat as his body arched and collapsed back against the stone.
"Easy," the old woman said sharply, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "If you tear those bindings, you will not wake again."
He clenched his teeth, sweat forming instantly on his brow.
"Nocturne?" he whispered hoarsely. "That's… like Eryx nocturne of theThird Order."
The old woman gave a faint, almost approving hum.
"Yes."
How did you know this.
Riven replied he was taught the names of lieutenants of all the orders in his time with Nyss in the wilderness.
Riven stared at the cavern ceiling, heart pounding painfully against weakened ribs.
"She told me she was human-born," he said. "She told me she was nothing special."
The woman's lips curved slightly not amusement, but something close to pity.
"Your mother lied to protect you."
Riven's vision wavered again.
"You knew her," he insisted. "How?"
The woman moved back to her seat, settling slowly.
"I knew her before the betrayal. Before the Pact was broken."
She watched his reaction carefully.
Riven's jaw tightened.
"Betrayal?"
The staff tapped lightly once.
"Tyrella Nocturne," the woman began, "was not merely a wolf. Sibling of Eryx Nocturne the lieutenant of the third order, separated during childhood by wars between the third and fourth.she was taken by a war hero of the fourth after he witnessed her potential where he trained her personally in combat and lunar knowledge.
"She studied the Moon not as something to worship," the old woman continued, "but as something to understand."
The cavern felt smaller suddenly.
"She believed the Orders misunderstood the Moon's will. She quickly rose up in skill and power and soon joined the lunar vanguard, an elite force of the fourth that carried out personal assassinations and high stakes missions and after years quickly rose to be it's captain.
Then one day she was personally given a mission to assassinate a scholar of forbidden moon knowledge that could destroy the Orders by the former lieutenant caelum. She then tracked the scholar down where she finds out he's just a defenceless human
Riven's breath hitched again.
"That sounds like"
"Like your father" the woman finished calmly.
Silence stretched
"Your mother questioned the Mission she couldn't bring herself to hurt the human but in that tense moment something between them began to blossom as their eyes met, love at first sight." she continued. "Through the human she learnt of the ancient covenant that binds the Orders to lunar authority. She discovered something… irregular."
Riven's pulse quickened despite his weakness.
"What?"
The old woman's eyes dimmed slightly.
"That the Moon does not command."
She leaned forward slightly.
"It responds."
Riven's mind struggled to catch up.
"Responds to what?"
"Will. Choice. Defiance."
The word lingered.
Defiance.
His core stirred faintly beneath layers of pain.
"She believed," the woman continued, "that the Moon's so-called destiny could be altered. That those strong enough could bend it."
Riven swallowed.
"And they didn't like that."
The woman's gaze hardened.
"No."
She paused.
"That's why she was given the mission to kill him in the first place."
A faint chill moved through him.
"Then what ?" he asked.
The woman did not answer immediately.
Instead, she studied him with unnerving intensity.
"You fight like her," she said softly. "Not like a wolf seeking dominance. Like someone challenging inevitability."
Riven's hands clenched weakly against the bandages.
"She went back to the council to report that she has fulfilled the mission," the woman continued. "But it was false, she lied not because she was weak but because she could not harm an innocent human. Because under the moon their eyes met and love had began to stir."
The words settled heavy.
"She broke the Pact," Riven said slowly, pieces connecting in painful clarity.
The old woman nodded once.
"Yes."
She continued to meet with this man in secret, learning knowledge that were discarded and deemed forbidden."From those secret meetings, love deepened. And from that love… you were conceived."
Silence filled the cavern.
Riven's breathing became shallow again not from pain this time.
"She wasn't just… Killed by chance," he said quietly.
"No."
The woman's voice was firm.
"She was killed because of her choices."
Being pregnant with you she chose to abandon everything, she took her powers away through the artefact of the moon goddess and stabbed her core making her human. She chose to give you a better life away from the destruction and cruelty of wolves.
Riven closed his eyes briefly.
His mother's gentle smile.
Her quiet strength.
Her refusal to speak of the past.
"She became human," he whispered.
"She destroyed her core," the woman corrected softly.
The statement hollowed the air.
Riven's eyes snapped open.
"That's impossible."
"It should be," the woman replied.
Her gaze flickered with something like old anger.
"She used an artifact tied to the Moon itself. Something forbidden. Something the Orders buried."
Riven's heart pounded painfully.
"She shattered her own core… to free herself."
"And to protect you," the woman added.
He stared at her.
"Me?"
She nodded.
"There were factions who wanted her silenced. There were others who wanted what she discovered."
A pause.
"And there were those who would have used her child."
So destroying her core made sure you were born without one, making you human
Riven's blood ran cold.
"She fled to human territory," the woman continued with him."
"My father," Riven whispered.
The woman inclined her head.
"A rogue guardian of ancient lunar knowledge."
Riven's chest tightened again this time not from injury.
"They weren't weak," he said.
"No," she replied.
"They were dangerous."
Silence lingered.
The old woman's expression softened slightly.
"You carry both their rebellions in your veins."
Riven stared at the cavern ceiling again.
"My mother… Tyrella Nocturne."
The name felt foreign and sacred at once.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked finally.
The woman's eyes sharpened.
"Because you are about to die again if you continue as you did."
The bluntness cut through him.
"You unleashed power you did not understand. Power she feared."
Riven's jaw clenched.
"I had to."
"No," she said firmly. "You chose to."
Her gaze softened only slightly.
"And that choice nearly erased you."
He tried to laugh but it came out as a broken cough.
"Didn't work."
"Barely."
She leaned back slightly.
"You have been unconscious for three months. Your pack believes you dead. The Orders believe you dead."
His eyes widened faintly.
"Nyss…"
The old woman watched the reaction carefully.
"She mourns."
The word fractured something inside him.
"And Rigor?" he asked quietly.
"Alive. Training. Preparing for the next Blood Moon."
Riven's fingers twitched.
A faint pulse stirred in his core.
Weak.
Unstable.
"But you," she said firmly, drawing his attention back, "are not finished."
He met her gaze.
"Why save me?"
The old woman's lips curved faintly.
"Because prophecy resists you."
She tapped her staff lightly.
"And because I was once Second Lieutenant of the Fourth once."
Riven's eyes widened despite exhaustion.
"You…"
"Yes."
Her gaze hardened.
"Exiled for seeing futures the Alpha did not wish acknowledged."
The cavern fell quiet again.
"You think I can win," Riven said slowly.
"I think," she corrected, "that you are not meant to die yet."
She rose slowly.
"But survival is not enough."
Her eyes bore into his.
"If you are to stand against what waits above, you must learn control. Not fury. Not desperation."
Her staff tapped once more.
"You must understand the Moon as your mother did."
Riven's vision began to blur again as exhaustion reclaimed him.
Before darkness took him, he whispered one final question.
"What's your name?"
The old woman paused.
For the first time, something almost gentle crossed her expression.
"Call me Astra Virel."
The name settled into the cavern like a forgotten star.
"And rest, Riven Thorn," she said quietly.
"You will need your strength."
Darkness claimed him again.
But this time
It did not feel empty.