The archives were kept in a vault beneath his father's territory.
Kael had never been inside. Few wolves had. The vault predated the Blood Wars—a chamber carved into bedrock, sealed with a door that required both a key and a blood offering to open.
His father led the way. Aldric pressed his palm to the door, and a needle drew blood—a single drop, absorbed by the ancient mechanism. The door swung open.
Inside, the air was cold and dry. Shelves lined the walls, filled with scrolls and books and objects Kael didn't recognize. Cassius and Lyra followed them in, their presence strange and unfamiliar in this sacred space.
"The oldest records are in the back," Aldric said. "I haven't looked at them in years. Decades."
They searched for hours. Scrolls that crumbled at a touch. Books in languages no one spoke anymore. Maps of territories that no longer existed. Kael worked beside Lyra, their shoulders brushing as they examined each fragment.
"Here," Lyra said.
She held a scroll that was different from the others. The material wasn't paper or parchment—something older, something that felt like skin but wasn't. The symbols on it were the same as the ones in the tunnel.
Cassius moved to her side. "The binding invocation. But this is older than the version we found. More complete."
"Can you read it?" Kael asked.
"Some." He traced the symbols with a finger. "This part names the creature. 'Whisper-that-walks. Eater-of-secrets. Child-of-silence.'"
"That's not a name. That's a description."
"There's more." Cassius continued reading. His expression changed. "Here. 'And they bound it with the name it was given before it was what it became. The name it answered to when it was still something that could be named.'"
"What's the name?"
Cassius was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked up.
"Aurelius."
The word hung in the cold air.
"Aurelius," Lyra repeated. "That's Latin. It means 'golden.'"
"It was human once," Cassius said. "Before it became what it is. Someone loved it enough to name it."
Kael thought about the chamber of names. The hundreds of victims, their identities stolen, their memories erased. And beneath all of them, the original name. The first victim.
"We can use this," he said. "We speak its name during the ritual. We give it back what it lost. That's the sacrifice—not our names, but its own."
Aldric nodded slowly. "It might work."
"It has to work," Lyra said.
They gathered the scroll and the other fragments they'd found. As they left the vault, Kael paused at the door. His father was watching him.
"You found another way," Aldric said.
"We found another way."
"I'm glad. I wasn't ready to lose you."
Kael didn't know what to say. His father had never spoken to him like this—openly, without the armor of authority.
"Dad," he said. It was the first time he'd called him that in years.
Aldric's expression softened. "Come on. We have a ritual to prepare."